When The Sky Fills With Rain
by dynamic-instability
Summary: "I know rocks turn to sand, and hearts can change hands, and you're not to blame when the sky fills with rain." Sequel to Happy Birthday and Lost and Found. Details inside. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

"Jude." Tommy's voice sounded broken and exhausted, pleading. "Just eat something, okay? You need to eat something." The sun was setting, and he hadn't seen Jude eat more than a few small bites for almost three days now. The last time had been after the funeral. Those three days had been a blur, and yet it seemed like an eternity since he'd held Jude's hand while sitting in a church pew wondering how this could possibly be happening.

His voice sounded to Jude like it was coming from very far away, but she nodded numbly and picked up her fork, choking down a few cold bites of something she could barely taste. After a moment, though, the tears that felt like they were always in her eyes these days started up again. She tried to stop the flood, but couldn't. She set down the fork and put her head in her hands, crying softly.

Tommy let out a groan. "Jude, come on. Please don't do this to me."

Jude looked up at him in surprise, looking betrayed. "Don't do this to you?" she hissed, anger cutting through the fog of grief.

He sighed. "I didn't mean it like that."

"I'm not doing this _to you!_ This isn't _about_ you, Tommy!" The tears were coming faster now, hot on her cheeks. She stood up, pushing back from the table. He got up, too. "I'm not… Tommy, I can't stop. I can't do anything. I can't… She's…"

Tommy pulled her into his arms, silently. She struggled a little, but he held her tight, and eventually she relaxed into his embrace. She slid her arms around his waist and buried her face in his shoulder, letting a loud sob tear through her. He tried his best to comfort her. "Shh, Jude. It's okay. I'm sorry."

"I can't," Jude sobbed again.

"I know." Tommy's voice cracked, and he finally allowed his own tears to resurface and spill into her hair. "Shh, I get it."

"I can't eat, I can't–"

"I know, Jude. I know." He wanted to find some other words of comfort, as much for himself as for Jude, but he couldn't, so he just kept whispering "I know" and crying softly.

"I'm sorry," she said after a while, as her sobs began to subside. She pulled back far enough to look at him, and guilt rushed through her at the tears on his face. "I know you're going through all of it too. I'm sorry I can't get it together. You shouldn't have to take care of me. I'm so sorry." She started to cry harder again and a sob ripped through the second apology.

"Hey." He reached a hand up to brush some of the tears from her cheeks. "It's okay. I'm here for you, alright?"

"You need someone to be there for you too, and I'm such a mess I can't even–"

"Shh, hey. You are here for me. We're here for each other. You and me. We'll get through it." He pulled her tight against him and buried his face in her hair again. "We'll get through this, okay? I love you." Jude had started to shake, and Tommy was practically holding her up, so he gently shifted so her arm was around his shoulders and half-led her to the bedroom where they held each other through a night of fitful sleep.

* * *

 **A/N:** So… I kind of did a bad thing. Oops. I swear I didn't mean to write this sequel until I was already in too deep to stop.

In the summer of 2013, a few months after I finished publishing Lost and Found, a little scrap of a scene between Jude and Tommy popped into my head. (It's in a few chapters, I'll let you know which scene that is when it happens, if you're curious.) It came out of nowhere, and I didn't exactly know what to do with it, but it came with a thought that intrigued me. How would Tommy and Jude react, what does it do to their dynamic, if I kill off the baby?

My first reaction was "no no no, you can't do that, that's horrible," and then I thought "well… it would be an interesting character exercise, though." I planned to write a few disconnected scenes for myself, _maybe_ publish them as extras at the most. At this point, I had already written that Toast extra (which this story contradicts), and I had a whole canon in my head of Tommy and Jude and their daughter (Caroline) living happily ever after. I had written about 5,000 words of an unfinished rambling epilogue to Lost and Found set a few years later, in that happily ever after.

One night in late August of that year, I stayed up all night writing what became these first few chapters. As more and more of the story took shape, I thought "okay, maybe this is becoming more of a short story, maybe a character exercise that's five or six chapters long, spanning the year or so after the death of the baby, showing Tommy and Jude putting their lives back together." I wasn't planning to consider it a sequel, wasn't planning to consider it canon with Happy Birthday, wasn't really planning for it to have very detailed of a plot. I was over 10,000 words into this story, but I was still planning to somehow make a happy ending epilogue of Lost and Found be the real canon.

When I started college a few weeks later, I didn't work on this story (or any fanfic, really) at all for a few months. I took second semester of that year off for health reasons, and that's when I came back to this. Suddenly (in what ended up being chapter 8ish) I realized that this story had a plot. A real and complex one. This wasn't just an interesting character exercise, this was a full sequel.

Over the past couple years this story has taken shape into something that's quite a bit different than anything I'd written before it. Even though it is a sequel to Happy Birthday and Lost and Found, it's quite a bit different than both stories (keep in mind, I started HB when I was 14, and L&F when I was 17. A lot of time has passed since.) It is _long_ , over 110,000 words, 55 chapters. It was very hard to write, and I imagine there will be places where it will be very hard to read, especially because I know quite a few of the people who read my stories have children. (I myself do not have kids, and I'm not really sure I could've brought myself to write this if I did.)

Be forewarned: it's dark, it's angst, it's really really sad in a lot of places. I know a lot of people read fanfiction looking for quick resolutions to simple conflict followed by chapters of fluff. That's all well and good, but if that's what you want, this will probably not be the story for you. I put these characters through hell in more ways than one. But honestly, in my (totally not objective) opinion, I think it's also _good_. It's been a marathon to write, but I'm proud of it, so I hope you all will bear with me and read it. But don't say I didn't warn you.

So yes, I killed the baby, but please forgive me anyway. For me, at least, the story was worth it in the end.

Circumstances permitting, updates will be Wednesdays and Saturdays, but I'll post the second chapter now.


	2. Chapter 2

Nothing about it made sense to Tommy. Everything from the church, to the deep black suit he was wearing, to the absurdly small size of the shiny white coffin. He almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the idea that this could be happening, though if he laughed he would almost surely not be able to stop crying. That he could be sitting with Jude in a grand cathedral in London, looking at the box that contained the body of their baby girl didn't make sense.

For one thing, what do you even say at a funeral for a baby? At funerals you tell stories. You reminisce. You think of all the good times you had together with the deceased, and try to take comfort that they lived their life as well as they could. Every death the two of them had experienced had been that way. Tommy's mémère and Jude's granddad, Tommy's mom, even Angie and Patsy, who had surely both been taken before their time. All of them had stories and legacies and a lifetime they'd lived.

But Caroline was 17 weeks old. Not even 4 months. Barely anyone in attendance at her funeral had even met her. Even Jude didn't truly feel like she _knew_ her daughter. She had so quickly become their whole world, but could she really say they'd known her? What's to know about a baby? What stories can you tell about someone who had never said a word, could only recently lift her own head? What memories did they have to hold on to?

Feeling her kick for the first time. Holding her in the hospital after she was born, filled to overflowing with an exhilarating mix of pure joy and terror. Standing over her crib, silently holding hands as she slept and they couldn't believe they had made this tiny helpless thing, that this beautiful little girl was really and truly theirs. The first time she really smiled, as Tommy played the piano and Jude sang. The first time she rolled over. Bringing her in to the studio to see everyone, and her cooing excitedly and reaching out for the mixing board. (In reality she'd probably just been fascinated by all the little lights, but Tommy had laughed in delight and called her his "little producer" for the rest of the week.)

These were all just moments, flashes, most of them beautiful because of the promise they held of a lifetime to come. Everyone had seen mere glimpses of Caroline's forming personality, of the person she could turn into, and now all of that was gone. Jude and Tommy hadn't really known their daughter, but none of that made this easier. If anything, it was worse. Jude desperately wanted—needed—more time. The last year of their lives had been defined by promise and hope, and now all of that was completely for naught, snatched away like a carpet being pulled from underfoot, and they were left scrambling to figure out which way was up, to find their lives again without their child.

 _Nothing about this makes sense._ Jude and Tommy both thought as they stared numbly ahead.

.

Aside from watching the coffin lowered into the ground, the receiving line was the worst part of the funeral for Jude. In theory the tradition existed to be comforting, having your family and friends express their condolences, but Jude couldn't stop being paranoid and searching people's faces for insincerity, for blame. There wasn't any there, she knew, and even their friends who hadn't ever met their daughter were just there out of a genuine desire to support them. Something about it was draining, though. Their sympathy drained her, made her feel like she needed to sleep for days, as if her own grief didn't do that enough.

Sadie stood next to Jude and their dad stood behind them. Sadie hadn't been able to reach their mom until the evening before the funeral, in not nearly enough time for her to fly to London. When her mother had finally called back, full of sympathy and apology and shock, Jude had snapped, practically screamed, in a tone she later regretted, that her mother shouldn't even bother coming at all. She had not, after all, even found the time to visit her grandchild while she was alive. Why the fuck should things change now that she was dead? Jude had hung up the phone in a rage that turned quickly to tears. Tommy, who understood conflicts with mothers better than most, had wrapped his arms around her and soothed her as Sadie snuck to the other room to call their mother back to explain and apologize on Jude's behalf.

Tommy had Kwest, who had dropped everything to come for Caroline's birth, and did it again upon hearing of her death, standing on his other side. Sadie had gently asked Tommy about inviting his brother, but Tommy shook his head and said that Tristan was still working on a fishing boat and had barely been able to get time off for his own mother's funeral, so he should hardly be expected to do the same for a niece he never met. "But do you want him there?" Jude had asked. Tommy shook his head again and said he'd just call his brother later to tell him, and that Kwest was just as much of a brother to him.

There were plenty of people missing. Not only her mom and Tommy's brother, but other people too. All three members of her London band were in attendance (Max, her drummer, who had become particularly attached to Caroline, looked as though he was trying very hard to hide the fact that he'd been crying, which Jude actually found sweet) but she felt the absence of the SME boys like a phantom limb. She had called Kyle and Wally, and skyped with Spied, who was in China on tour and couldn't get away, and who had promised he'd come to London to give her a real hug as soon as he could reschedule some shows. In the meantime, he'd made a very touching dedication of his performance "to the fiercest, sweetest, most beautiful little rock star I ever had the pleasure to meet. She was taken away from us way too soon, and all my love is with her amazing parents tonight. Stay strong, dudes."

Tommy, meanwhile, was missing Mrs. McAlley more than anyone. She was in her seventies, and to ask her to fly across the ocean was too much, but god, he wanted her there. Mostly he was gutted that his daughter's namesake would never get to meet her. They'd been planning a trip back to Canada for when Caroline was a little older, but now… He had called her from the hospital, left her a message before anyone knew besides Sadie, whom Jude had called, and Kwest, whom Sadie had called at Tommy's request. When Mrs. M called him back later, he locked himself in the soundproofed music room (away from Jude, who certainly noticed, though she didn't say anything) and cried harder than he could remember ever crying in his life. Mrs. M had mostly listened as he flickered through the stages of grief from denial to anger to bargaining and back again.

When he had asked her what in the hell he should do, she had paused, then spoken very slowly and calmly. "I've never told you this, but in 1971, my son Kenneth died of leukemia. He was nine years old when I lost him. And even though I've been through it, I still can't imagine the grief you're feeling right now. Losing a child is the most painful thing I've ever had to go through, and there's nothing that I can tell you that's going to make that any easier. I'm so very very sorry." He said very quietly that she had at least gotten through it, and she sighed. "They say time heals all wounds, and I think that's probably true. But I was left with quite a scar. My mistake was that I let it tear my family apart. I lost my marriage, and I almost lost my relationship with my daughter too. So my advice is, you need to be with Jude right now. She needs you, and you need her. You need to focus on the love that created that beautiful girl of yours, and on the joy that she brought you, and not on the pain of losing her. Don't let this loss lead to another loss."

Standing at the funeral, remembering her words, Tommy reached over to grab Jude's hand, squeezing it. She looked at him with a deep sorrow that reflected his own, and squeezed his hand so hard it hurt before letting go to accept a hug from their boss.

Jamie was there. He too had dropped everything, which was no small feat for the head of a record company. Jude rushed to hug him, and couldn't let go for a very long time. She started to cry again in her best friend's embrace, managing to hold in the wrenching sobs, but still soaking the lapel of his jacket pretty thoroughly. "I've got you Jude. I've got you." He whispered to her, stroking her hair. When she pulled back she wiped her tears and said, "Thank you so much for being here, Jame."

"I'm always here for you, Jude. Any time." He kissed her lightly on the top of the head and then turned to Tommy. "Hey, man. How are you holding up?" He touched Tommy's shoulder briefly.

"I'm…" Tommy sighed. "Holding up, I guess. It does mean a lot that you're here. For us. Especially for Jude. Thanks, Andrews."

"Sure thing, Quincy."

Tommy found himself smiling faintly at the way they addressed each other by their last names, a reminder of their by-gone rivalry. The smile was small and fleeting, but it was more than he'd expected.

Meanwhile, Zeppelin had come up behind her husband and smiled sadly at Jude, squeezing her shoulder lightly. "Hey there."

"Hi, Zep. Thanks for coming."

"Of course, Jude." Jude could see that Zeppelin had tried to conceal her belly with an oversized and shapeless dress, but it had failed. It was still very apparent with her small form that she was… what, five months pregnant, now? Five and a half? That seemed right, because Jamie had told her the news when they'd come to London in November to meet their new goddaughter… "We're both really lucky to have met her." Zeppelin was saying. "She was an amazing little girl."

As Zeppelin spoke, hand going unconsciously to her stomach, Jude started feel something like rage filling her chest. It was entirely involuntary, of course, because she really did like Zeppelin under normal circumstances. She was a little socially awkward, maybe, but also sweet and smart and with killer taste in music. And, most importantly, Jamie loved her and she loved him. Jude tried to concentrate on these things, and not on the mix of jealousy and frustration and grief that was building in her by the second and making her want to scream or sob or rip her best friend's pregnant wife's hair out by the roots. "Are you and Jamie going back right away?" she asked Zeppelin in a tight voice.

Jude fought the irrational feelings back, but something must have shown on her face, because a little crease formed between Zeppelin's eyebrows, and she removed her hand from Jude's arm. "I'm going back tomorrow morning. Jamie's staying longer."

"I can stay for as long as you need, Jude." Jamie said gently.

"You have a label to run, Jamie. Besides, Sadie's going to be here for a couple of weeks, and I think Kwest is too. Plus Spied said he's going to try to come out, and with him too, we have practically all of NBR here." Her joke was feeble, and she was unable to muster a smile to accompany it.

Zeppelin smiled, but Jamie remained serious. "I'm staying as long as you need me here, Jude."

"We'll…" She swallowed hard and ran a hand through her hair, reaching her other hand over to slip her fingers through Tommy's again, squeezing hard and trying to stop focusing on the way Zeppelin was still absentmindedly rubbing a hand over her belly. Tommy seemed to understand, and squeezed back. "We'll talk about it later, Jame. I just have to get through this right now, okay?"

"Of course, Jude, of course." Jamie leaned down to kiss the top of her head again before taking Zeppelin's hand and walking away.

"Shit," Tommy muttered as they went out of earshot. "I forgot about her being..."

"Me too," she breathed, and didn't let go of his hand even through several one-armed hugs. For this moment, for them standing up here, it helped to feel him there, to know that they were going though this together.

.

Jude thought dimly, as people came past to give their condolences, that everyone probably dealt with the problem of how to possibly inform everyone who needed to know when a loved one had died.

The part other people didn't deal with was the part where, once they had made sure everyone in their immediate circle was informed, they'd had to meet with a rep and okay a statement to give to the media before the word got out on its own and caused a problem as a rumor. The wording was pretty standard. "Caroline Harrison Quincy, four-month old daughter of musicians Jude Harrison and Tom Quincy, passed away last Thursday night from a sudden illness. A private funeral service will be held this week for friends and family. Harrison and Quincy thank all of their fans in advance for their support, and for respecting their privacy during this very difficult time."

 _This very difficult time._ The phrase felt wrong to Jude, though she knew they were the right words to use. A difficult time is what she went through after her sixteenth birthday. A difficult time was when her parents got divorced, or after she and Tommy broke up in New Brunswick. When she first got to London, that was a difficult time. It was a difficult time recovering from what Megan had done to her, both times, and (although the thought filled her with all kinds of complicated guilt, it was true enough) when she first found out she was pregnant it had been a difficult time, too.

This was not a difficult time. This was something totally different. Everything had changed. Her life had been turned upside down and was still being violently shaken. She felt like a part of her had been ripped away. That horribly underwhelming word "difficult", it mocked her with its simplicity. It couldn't touch how this really felt.

* * *

 **A/N:** In case you were wondering, which you probably weren't, I operate under the assumption Tommy at some point legally changed his surname to Quincy. Hence "Caroline Harrison Quincy" and several other references in this story to him as Tom/Thomas Quincy in an official capacity when it might otherwise say Dutois.


	3. Chapter 3

"Anything I can help with, Sadie?" Tommy asked quietly, walking into his kitchen where Sadie was washing dishes.

She turned to look at him. "I've got it, Tom. You don't have to."

"Please. I'm going crazy sitting around."

Sadie nodded. "In that case, want to dry?"

"Sure thing." He came up to stand next to her and grabbed the towel.

Sadie almost commented on how funny it was, seeing Tommy Q doing dishes, but she thought better of it and instead asked, "Where's Jude?"

"I think she's finally getting some sleep," he answered with a heavy sigh, drying off one of the many dishes that had found its way into their home this week.

"What about you?" Sadie asked gently. "Have you gotten any sleep?"

"I slept for a few hours last night." He sighed heavily again and added quietly, "But every time I fall asleep it's like I forget. For that second when I first wake up, it's like she's still going to be there."

"I'm so sorry, Tommy," Sadie said softly, tears springing to her eyes.

"Everyone's sorry," he murmured. He shrugged then, and gave her a half-hearted smile. "You gonna give me that plate or are you just going to keep scrubbing the same one?"

… ... … ... …

"I think she might be the one, Maren," Alex said. Maren's laugh through the phone was clearly at his expense, but not quite mean. "I mean it, Mare."

"I know you do." Maren laughed again.

"You don't think so?"

"I don't know. I've never met her, how would I possibly be able to make that judgement?"

"Then what's so funny?"

"Nothing. You." She quelled her laughter. "I'm not laughing _at_ you, it's just… I don't know. It's nice to see you happy."

"I haven't been unhappy!" Alex protested.

"That's not what I meant. You're… excited, is all. I think it's cute."

"Is this weird? Me telling you about Lucy?"

"No," Maren said definitively. "It's not weird. Even if we're technically exes. I think it's been over long enough. It was over before it was over."

"Good. Just making sure."

"So you're officially official then?"

"As of last night."

"Ooooo, last night," Maren teased.

"Okay, now it's weird."

"Sorry," she laughed again. "I guess if this girl is really 'the one' then I'd better meet her sometime, eh?"

"When are you down in London?"

"I don't know. I could make time, come down for a weekend."

"That would be great. I miss you."

"Miss you too. Hey, sorry, I have a billion exams to grade and my next class is in less than an hour. I'll talk to you later?"

"No problem. I'm almost there anyway."

"Okay. Bye, Lexi."

"Bye Mare." He hung up, pushing a button on his steering wheel, as he pulled up to Lucy's place. He sent a text saying "I'm here :)" and a moment later Lucy opened the door, pulling her long, dark hair into a ponytail as she came down the front steps.

"Hey there, boyfriend," she said with a grin as she got into the passenger's side.

A smile broke across Alex's face at the still-new moniker. "Hey yourself, girlfriend." Lucy laughed and leaned in to kiss him.

"How are you?" he asked as he started the car.

"I'm good. I had a great night last night." She put on a conspiratorial tone. "I think I might really like this guy I've been seeing."

"Oh?" Alex asked with a grin. "Anyone I know?"

"I think maybe you've met." Lucy laughed.

"Well, he must be pretty great to deserve you."

"Who said he deserves me?" she teased.

"Oh, ouch." Alex feigned hurt, putting a hand over his heart, eliciting another laugh from Lucy. They talked a bit more about the photography exhibit they were on their way to see. It was being put on by a friend of Lucy's, someone she'd worked with as a reporter and filmmaker in Cairo during the revolutions. Lucy turned the radio on and didn't notice when he stiffened slightly as a Jude Harrison song began to play.

"Did you hear about her daughter?" Lucy asked about halfway through the song.

"Hmm?" Alex asked. "Whose?"

"Jude Harrison."

"Oh. Yeah, I know she and Tom Quincy have a daughter."

"Had," Lucy said sadly.

"What?"

"They had a daughter. I guess she died this week. She was only a few months old. It's really sad."

"She what?" Alex felt like his heart stopped for a second, and the car swerved a little in the lane.

"Whoa! Alex, driving!"

"Shit!" Alex swore, looking back at the road. "Sorry."

"What's wrong?" Lucy looked confused.

"No, it's just… Jude's daughter is dead? Her baby died?"

"Uh… yeah… I read something about it this morning. It's all over the internet."

"Oh my god," Alex whispered. Lucy was looking at him like he was insane. Oh, right. Of course she was. As far as she was concerned, he was freaking out over the death of a celebrity's child. "Sorry, it's just… You know I told you about my aunt's record label, I used to spend a lot of time there… Jude's signed to Bermondsey."

"Oh, so you know them personally, then?"

"Uh… you could say that, yeah." Lucy knew Alex had been engaged, but he hadn't quite gotten around to mentioning the fact that his ex-fiancée was none other than Jude Harrison, and she wasn't a big enough fan of Jude's or invested enough in popular culture to have seen pictures of them together and figured it out herself.

"You're friends?"

"We were, I guess," Alex said quietly as they pulled up to the gallery and he parked.

"What does that mean?"

"Um…" Alex turned off the car. "We… Jude and I…"

"Oh." Lucy looked surprised. "You dated her?"

"Uh, yeah. For a year and a half. We… were engaged."

"Jesus Christ," Lucy breathed. "Your ex-fiancée. Is Jude Harrison."

"Like I said, she works for my aunt." He shrugged sheepishly.

"Jesus Christ," Lucy said again.

Alex groaned. "It's not a big deal. The last time I talked to her was right after she got pregnant, I just, I had no idea their daughter–"

"And here you are slumming it with me," she said quietly.

"No! For God's sake, Lucy, no. This is why I didn't mention…"

"You were engaged to Jude bloody Harrison!" she protested.

"Jude bloody Harrison left me for Tom Quincy!" Alex insisted.

"Still. I'm just…"

"You're amazing! Jude may be famous, but you're perfect in a million ways she will never be! You're not in love with another man, for one thing, but more than that. You're passionate, and beautiful, and intelligent, and I'm falling in love with you." Lucy's eyebrows shot sky high at that, but Alex was on a roll. "I was 19 when I met her, and she was impressive to me, because she was famous and talented and all of that, and at the time I think I just felt lucky she was even interested, so I spent a year and a half in a terrible relationship. I proposed to a woman I _knew_ didn't love me because I thought it would make her stay with me. That idea I had, and you seem to have, that she's somehow better than you and me? That's the kind of flawed thinking that made us both miserable for ages. I may have thought I loved Jude, when I was young and had low self esteem, and I was trying to rebel against my mother…" he laughed at himself a little as he said that, rolling his eyes. "But whatever infatuation or attachment or… well, yeah, love, but whatever it is that I felt for her, it's nothing compared to the way you make me feel and… I…" Alex trailed off, realizing what he was saying, taking note of Lucy's expression, and embarrassment flooded him. "I should stop talking," he added quietly, putting his head down and pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand. "Sorry." He sighed, looking back up at her. "I know we've only known each other for a few weeks, and that was probably very overboard. Please just pretend I didn't say–"

"Hush." Lucy's mouth had curled into a smile as he spoke, and she cut Alex off with a laugh. "It's fine," she said, flushing a little. "I'm… falling for you too."

"Yeah?" Alex asked quietly.

"Yes." She smiled and leaned in to kiss him. When she pulled back, she said, "Sorry for… I overreacted about her, it just caught me off-guard."

"I guess I should've said something sooner."

"No, Alex, it's fine. It's not as though I gave you the names of all the men I've dated. I was just surprised." She squeezed his hand and and then pulled away, opening her car door. "Shall we?"

"Of course." He got out of the car, but his mind was still on the news. "God, I can't believe her daughter _died_. She was just a baby…" Alex said as they walked, holding hands.

"I know. I can't imagine." Lucy stopped walking suddenly, looking a little freaked out. "You said the last time you talked to her was after she got pregnant. It wasn't…"

"Mine?" Alex finished her sentence, eyebrows shooting up. "God no. The baby is definitely Quincy's." He laughed. "No. Jude definitely did not have my baby."

"She cheated on you? Is that why it ended?"

"Well… not exactly. I don't think she, you know, slept with him while we were together. She was in love with him, definitely, but I don't think they actually did anything while I was in the picture. Maybe they did. They might as well have. But, no, the whole pregnancy thing definitely happened later."

"Sorry. Just checking."

"It's fine." They started walking again. "I just… Should I say something to her? Should I call her? Send a card?"

"I don't know. You said you've spoken to her since you split up. Did you part on good terms?"

"Not exactly." Alex winced. "I barely acknowledged her the whole of the trial, and I've only seen her a few times since then, at Bermondsey, and those times I pretended I hadn't."

"Trial?" Lucy looked confused.

"Ah. Right. She and I were sort of… attacked."

"The scar on your stomach. You said you were stabbed." She stopped walking again, looking sort of horrified. Lucy had asked about the scar a few nights before, after the first time they'd slept together. Alex had said he was stabbed a year previous, and she hadn't really pushed for details, just said "oh, wow, Alex, I'm sorry." He'd insisted it was fine, and she'd pressed her lips to the thick pink line of scar tissue, effectively ending the conversation by trailing a line of kisses lower down.

"Uh, yeah. It was a few months after we split up, but Jude had a stalker and she attacked us. I guess I got in the way of her mission to destroy Jude. Quincy came home and saved my life. Jude had a concussion and some nasty bruises around her throat, but I kind of got the worst of it."

"I think I remember hearing something about that, but I never thought… Oh, Alex." Lucy looked sick, putting a hand on the side of his face.

Alex smiled. "I'm fine. They fixed me up. No permanent harm done or anything." He grabbed her hand and kissed her fingers. "But I don't really like to talk about it."

"I understand." Her hand went unconsciously to the scar on the side of her head, a souvenir from an Egyptian police officer during a violent protest she'd tried to film. "So that was the last time you talked to Jude, then?"

"Essentially. In the hospital. I said some… unkind things. I was angry. Mostly because I wasn't over our relationship, and I was upset about Quincy, and the baby, and… I needed space, and I told her that, and she gave it. I started dating Maren, and that was sort of it. It's been… about a year now, I guess."

"Hmm." Lucy bit her lip for a moment, thinking. "I don't know. I can't even imagine what she's going through. I don't know if it would help or hurt, hearing from you."

"I don't know either." He looked down at his watch. "But we're late. It can wait."

"Alex?" Lucy asked suddenly.

"Uh… yes?"

"I'm really glad we're… doing this, you know?"

She didn't mean the exhibit, and he understood, a smile spreading across his face. "Me too."

* * *

 **A/N:** Alex is only in a _very_ small amount of this story, because frankly there's too much else going on with Jude and Tommy that doesn't involve him, but I still included him where I could, because I love him and I want him to be happy. Also because the first two stories were very much about him and it seemed unfair to write him out of this one.


	4. Chapter 4

"Jude?" Tommy's voice was quiet, but it filled the silence of the bedroom. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah," she said softly. She was laying on her back, staring up at the ceiling. "Can't sleep."

"Me neither." She felt the bed shift as he moved closer to her, and his arm slipped around her waist. She stiffened for a second, then forced herself to relax. He was warm, and she tried to let herself enjoy the feeling of him holding her. She felt him press his lips against her temple, then against her jaw, and she fought her initial impulse to pull away, instead turning her head and kissing him on the lips before turning her back to him.

He misinterpreted her intentions, and moved to kiss her neck, breathing in the scent of her. His fingers crept around her hipbone, sliding under the waistband of the boxers she wore to bed. He pressed against her, murmuring her name.

"Don't," she said quietly, grabbing his arm and pushing his hand away.

He still didn't understand, and he slid the hand up to her breast. "I need you." he groaned into her hair, and it filled her with a sudden rush of rage. She pushed him off, violently this time.

"No! What the hell is wrong with you?" she hissed.

"What?" He looked confused and hurt. "What did I do?" He reached out to her, and she glared, standing up, grabbing her pillow and hugging it to herself like a shield. "What the hell, Jude?"

Her face contorted and she gripped the pillow tighter "How can you think I'd want to… How can you…" Tears slipped from her eyes and down her cheeks. "No."

"I didn't…" Tommy looked shocked, stricken. "I'm sorry, I just…"

"I can't," she said severely, turning on her heel and taking her pillow out of the room.

… ... … ... …

Tommy sat on the couch, staring blankly at the television as some stupid action movie played. Things were blowing up on the screen, but he wasn't paying enough attention to know why. It had been two weeks, now. Sadie had taken Jude for a spa day or something. He didn't think Jude was really into it, but she wanted to spend time with Sadie before she headed back to Toronto, and knew she needed to get out of the apartment whether she wanted to or not. To be honest, Tommy thought she probably wanted to get away from him too. They had been tiptoeing around each other ever since the other night, a not quite definable tension between them.

And as for what Tommy wanted? He wanted to drink. He wanted to drink until he couldn't feel anything. He wanted to drink until he passed out and then he wanted not to wake up for a year, when all of this pain wouldn't be so fresh and raw and horrible.

But he'd made a promise to himself, to Kwest, and to the memory of his daughter that he would get through this without resorting to that.

But God, he wanted a drink.

… ... … ... …

Tommy woke to find Jude's suitcases packed and lined up in the hall. "Jude?" he called, trying to stay calm and not to jump to conclusions. "Where the hell are you?"

"I'm here." He heard her sniffle, and turned to see her standing in the doorway of the nursery. She turned to him, wiping tears from her face.

"Jude, please tell me these are Sadie's." His voice broke, and the hand pointing to the suitcases shook.

She looked down at the ground and sighed, looking guilty. "I just…"

"No. Jude, no. Please don't do this to me. You cannot do this again. You can't put an ocean between us again. Not now."

"It's not like that!" she insisted. "It's definitely not like when I moved here."

"Tell me how it's not like that! Because while I was sleeping, you packed your suitcases, and now it looks like you're leaving with Sadie and going back to Toronto."

Jude didn't deny it, and his stomach plummeted. "It's temporary, Tom, I swear."

"You're leaving me!" Tommy's voice was rising in volume, but there wasn't any anger in his expression, just hurt and fear.

"I'm not leaving you, Tommy!" she insisted. "I'm not! It's temporary, okay? I just need to… I have to get away from here."

"Away from me, you mean." His look was accusatory now.

She shook her head. "I promise it's not like that."

"How the hell isn't it?! It's exactly like that."

"Tommy, please. Let's not fight about this, okay? I just need some time." She turned and walked down the hall away from him, into the kitchen.

"Goddammit, Jude!" he shouted, following her. "You don't get to do this to me!" He grabbed her arm and turned her around to look at him. "I need you right now." His voice broke again. "I can't get through this alone."

"Yeah fucking right," Jude hissed, twisting her arm out of his grasp and pulling away. "You don't need me." She looked angry suddenly, almost disgusted, as she turned away from him again.

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" he protested.

"It means you're fine, Tom!" she cried, turning back and throwing her arms up into the air. "It means you don't even care anymore! You've already moved on! You've completely forgotten Caroline, like she didn't even exist. You don't give a–"

She jumped and cut off with a yelp as Tommy threw a plate down, smashing it against the counter and cracking it into pieces. "Don't you fucking DARE say that to me, Harrison!" His face was red, a muscle twitching in his jaw. It had been ages since Jude had seen him this angry. "She was my daughter too!" he screamed at her. "She was my world! Don't you DARE say I didn't care about her!" He felt tears burning in his eyes. "I will NEVER forget her. I will NEVER move on." His voice lost its rage gradually as a few tears spilled over and down his cheeks. He wiped them away harshly with the back of his hand. "Don't you _dare_ try to tell me I don't care."

"Tommy…" she breathed. "I'm… I didn't mean to…"

"I need you," he said again. "I do. I'm not fine. And maybe I don't like to show it or admit it, and you know that about me, but Jude, I do need you. Please stay. You need to stay."

"I…" she shook her head. "I'm sorry."

"No!" Tommy protested desperately.

"I'm so sorry I said you didn't care. I didn't mean that. Of course I know you care. I'm so sorry."

"You can't leave me, Jude."

She sighed in exasperation "I already told you it isn't like that."

"If it's not like that, let me come with you," he challenged. "If this is about getting away and not getting away from me, we can go together."

"I just…" she tried to protest, but then trailed off and hung her head.

"Is this about the other night?"

"No," Jude sighed.

"Jude, for fuck's sake, just because I wanted sex doesn't mean I've moved on. You aren't ready and that's fine, but people deal with things in different ways, and I–"

"It's not that!" she protested, cutting him off. "It's… well, it's not just that." Tommy was frowning at her expectantly, and she continued. "I feel like I can't breathe. I can't smile, or laugh, or do anything, or talk to anyone, or…" He opened his mouth to protest as she trailed off and she cut him off quickly, putting up a hand. "I know you're grieving too. But you don't show it, Tommy. I know part of that is just how you are," she added before he could say it, "I get it. But it's not just that you don't cry in front of me, or that you put on a brave face and don't talk about how you're feeling, or whatever. I expected that. It's that you… I don't know, Tom. You seem fine. You go out all the time now."

"I do not!"

"You've gone out practically every night this week!" As she spoke, Tommy's face filled with a strange anger and hurt, but she continued, "And that's okay. It really is. If you feel ready to have fun again, I don't want to stop you."

"Have fun?" Tommy asked in a low voice. He was looking at her in angry disbelief.

"If it makes you feel better, I want you to do it, but I feel like you're a thousand miles away from me. I feel like we're not even on the same page. I don't want to be mad about it, but it makes me so... I just thought maybe if I could have some time on my own, we could… I don't know. I swear I wasn't thinking anything long, maybe a few weeks and then... Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You really have no idea, do you?" He looked furious again. "You're so wrapped up in yourself that you haven't even noticed. Why the hell do I bother?!"

"Wait, what? Notice what?" Jude was taken aback. Evidently this was about more than them grieving in different ways.

"You know what, Jude? I give up. Go ahead. Leave me again. Go back across the ocean. I give up! I've been trying so hard and you just… Why did I even try?!"

"Whoa, Tommy, slow down. What are you talking about?"

"I haven't been going out and having fun," he spat.

"Okay…" Jude looked confused. "I didn't mean that you were–"

"For fuck's sake!" he cried. "I'm two weeks sober!"

"You're…" Jude still looked confused for a second before it hit her. "Oh."

"AA meetings, Jude. That's where I've been going," he snapped, still angry.

"Oh," she breathed again. "I didn't… I had no idea." But now that she knew, it started to make a lot of sense. Memories clicked together in her mind.

The night after the funeral, Tommy had started to drink, and she remembered thinking she needed to keep an eye on it, to make sure the drinking didn't become as bad as she knew it had the potential to get. She'd made a mental note to stop him before he could drink enough to make himself sick or to black out, but she had become absorbed in distracting herself with the mindless task of helping Sadie and her dad go through the sympathy cards. Kwest had gone in to talk to Tommy, and she had been reassured that he wouldn't let anything bad happen. The next morning, after a night spent crying onto Sadie's shoulder, talking to and crying with Jamie on her balcony for a few hours, and a general sleepless blur of grief, she had found Tommy, sober and not even hungover, pouring the last of a bottle of whiskey into the kitchen sink. She had asked him about it and he had shrugged and brushed it off, saying something vague about a conversation with Kwest. Jude, in her fogged state, hadn't pushed it, though evidently she should have.

A week later, the night after Kwest had left, was the first time Tommy had left in the evening, informing Jude that he'd be back in a couple hours. She hadn't pried then either, she realized, not even when he had come back home. If she had been paying attention she'd probably have been surprised to see him return sober, and the too-long and tearful hug he'd given her when he walked in should have been a red flag of some kind. But Jude's grief was a world unto itself, and she'd been cocooned inside it. "Oh God, Tom," she whispered. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Tommy had been glaring at her, but the anger in his expression melted back into sadness and his shoulders slumped. "I've been meaning to." He took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. "At first I didn't say anything because I didn't believe it was a problem. I went to the first meeting because Kwest asked me to. Made me promise I would go at least once."

"He did?" Jude asked, surprised and guilty. Kwest had seen the drinking as a problem and done something about it, but she hadn't. She knew Tommy drank a lot, of course, and, while Jude herself was more of a social drinker—often drinking to have fun but almost never drinking to forget—she knew alcohol was sometimes Tommy's way of dealing when things got hard. But she had never thought of him as an alcoholic, in spite of that, and in spite of his mom's history with alcoholism. For one thing, drinking had rarely impaired his ability to work, and it had never really hurt his parenting either, aside from a couple too-late nights out. But if Tommy was attending AA meetings, it was because he thought it was a problem. If he had taken the step to define himself as an alcoholic, then that must be what he was. But then how had she not seen it?

Tommy seemed to understand what was going on in her head, because he explained, "You never saw when it got really bad, I don't think. Not the way Kwest did. The first time was after Angie died. I drank pretty heavily in those days anyway, because of the lifestyle, you know. But when she died, and then after I quit Boyz Attack, I lost control of it for a while. It got better when I started working for G Major, because I had something else to focus on, and for most of the time you knew me I was okay. I still drank too much, but it wasn't quite the same. The second time was…" He sighed heavily again, and ran a hand along his jaw, "after you moved to London. I never told you how bad that really was." He shook his head. "It wasn't your fault." he added quickly, sensing her guilt. "It was all on me, but it was bad, for a while. I… I don't know. I almost ended up in the ER more than once, I practically pushed Milo's head through a window… After a few months I got it under control a little more because Kwest was really worried, and D sent me on World Instant Star. But even after that, before I came to London, I was drinking too much, and for all the wrong reasons. I would break things, and push people away, and make generally shitty decisions, and it was just… bad."

"After your mom," Jude said quietly.

Tommy nodded, remembering how Jude had bandaged up the hand he injured by putting it through a mirror after hearing news of his mother's death. "I can get the drinking more or less under control when things are good, but when they're bad, I can't. And Kwest knows that, and he said he'd been thinking about it… He wanted me to stop this time before I messed something up. He was right. I've been going to the meetings because I don't want to have to hit rock bottom this time to get it under control. And I'm starting to see that maybe the only way to keep it under control permanently is to stop completely."

"I didn't know," she whispered. "I never thought…"

"I know," he sighed. "You didn't know because I didn't tell you."

"I didn't even think… I didn't ask, I didn't… I'm so sorry."

"No," he said quietly. "I'm sorry. It's my fault for not saying anything."

She looked at him, her eyes full of tears. "Two weeks sober."

His gaze flickered down, embarrassed for a moment, but then he met her gaze again and nodded. "Two weeks."

"That's… I'm proud of you, Tommy. That's really, really good."

Pain flashed across his face. "The thing is, Jude, it would be so much easier to just drink until I can't feel anything. No matter how much I tell myself it's not going to help, I constantly feel like I need…" He put his hand to his head and pressed hard on his eyelids for a second until he saw spots. "It's really hard to convince myself that it wouldn't be better to try and black out until it's over."

Jude let out a little sob. "Oh, Tommy, I didn't know, I–"

"But do you know why I haven't?" he interrupted, suddenly fierce. "Because I look at you and I remember that it's not just me here. We may feel a thousand miles apart sometimes, Jude, but I can look at you and remember that you need me, and that we're going through this together, and that's enough reason to keep trying." His voice cracked on the last word, and his intensity melted back into soft pleading. "If you leave me I don't know if I can keep doing this. Please, Jude. Please, you can't go. Not without me."

As the last word left his mouth, Jude threw her arms around his neck. "Okay," she said into his shoulder.

"Okay what?" he asked, though he returned her embrace.

She pulled back and looked into his face, tears streaming down her cheeks again. "I'll stay. I'm staying. I won't go to Toronto." She tucked her face back into the hollow of his neck. "I'm sorry."

"Thank you," he breathed, holding her tighter as relief washed through him. "I love you, Jude. Always always. We're going to get through this."

* * *

 **A/N:** Calling Tommy an alcoholic is probably a stretch. The things he outlines here constitute a drinking problem, but it's really not to the point where it's alcoholism, probably, because it doesn't have the regular need to drink that's really the characteristic of alcoholism from a diagnostic/clinical standpoint. It's a bit of a stretch, but not too much, and I liked the plot line, so I kept it.

Also, in case you were curious, the beginning of this last scene, with the suitcases and the Jude thinking about leaving, was the scene that popped into my head and started this whole thing.

Also also, just a warning: I am currently in the hardest course I have ever taken in my life (I have ten typed pages of notes from just the reading and lecture for yesterday's class? how), so if sometimes in the next few weeks I forget what day it is and don't post a chapter, forgive me. I'm sure it will happen. Also, my proofreading may fail because my brain is too full of neuroscience knowledge (ironic!) so if I have typos, let me know. Thank you all for your reviews.


	5. Chapter 5

Tommy's heart sank a little farther as he saw Jude sitting on the couch, staring into space, nothing else occupying her time. "Jude," he said softly, sitting down next to her.

"Hey," she said, glancing at him before looking back to the spot on the wall that had previously occupied her gaze.

"Can you look at me for a second?"

She sighed a little, but turned. "What is it?"

"Jude, you need to answer your phone."

"What? I answer when you call, don't I?"

"Yeah, but I mean to people other than me."

"I talked to Sadie for almost an hour on Wednesday when she called!" Jude still protested, but she looked guilty.

"Emily texted me this morning," Tommy said, raising his eyebrows.

"Oh." Jude tried to maintain her guilty expression, but she didn't hide her relief very well. "I guess I may have ignored a couple of her calls. And text messages. But she's so smiley, Tommy. She wants to go out and I just can't, okay? But I don't like turning her down because she gets all disappointed and so I've been… yes, maybe ignoring her a little. Can you tell her it's nothing personal?"

Tommy, though, was still frowning. "And Jamie just called."

Jude's heart sank. "Oh."

"Yeah. Let that sink in. You've been ignoring Andrews so much, he called _me_."

"I haven't…" she started to argue, but trailed off with a sigh.

"He called to make sure you were okay."

"I'm fine!"

"Then tell him yourself! I don't like being the messenger. It makes me feel like your damn secretary." His voice softened as he said, "He's your best friend, girl. You need to talk to him."

"You're lecturing me about the importance of communication, Tommy? Can anyone spell ironic?"

"Jude," he said sternly.

She sighed again. "Sorry, sorry."

"I've been trying." He looked a little hurt.

"I know you have, and you've been doing really really well. Better than I have." She squeezed his hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."

"Seriously, though. Jamie?"

"He's… it's Zeppelin."

"Oh. Right. The baby." He grimaced. "He talks about it a lot?"

"He _doesn't_ talk about it," she groaned. "Every conversation with him just feels like him not talking about it. I know Jamie, and I know…" Her voice caught in her throat and she cleared it. "I know what it's like to be a few months from having a baby, and I know he wants to talk about it. I know he's going around showing everybody the same sonogram over and over again, and blabbering on and on about what color they're painting the nursery, and I'm his best friend, and I know he wants to tell me every detail, and I want to want to know. I want to be there for him and be happy for them, and I can't and it kills me, okay? So yes. I've been avoiding him." Tommy sighed and put his arm around her, pulling her to him and kissing the top of her head. She leaned her head on his shoulder. "I don't know what to do about it."

Tommy was silent for a while, holding her. "I think you have two options," he said finally. "One is to tell him you need space and you can't talk to him for a while."

"Oh, Tommy, I can't. Jamie's my best friend, I don't want to hurt him like that."

"He would understand. Andrews understands loss, and he understands needing to push people away for a while when you're grieving. Your friendship has survived worse."

"That doesn't mean it wouldn't hurt him."

"Yeah. The other option is to just… deal with it. Push through. Ask him about the baby and try to separate being excited for him from being sad about Caroline."

"Easier said than done."

Tommy sighed. "I know. I'm not saying it has to be all you talk about, I'm just saying that it's not going away, and if you want to keep Jamie as a friend, you're going to need to be able to get past this at some point."

Jude thought for a moment, then sighed again. "You're right." She put a hand on his chest briefly, then pulled away. "Since when are you good at this kind of stuff?"

"Therapy," Tommy said jokingly. "On and off for years. I think it's finally kicking in."

That actually earned a small smile from Jude. "Explains why you're so much more stable than I am these days."

Tommy frowned. "Hey. You're doing the best you can, alright? Don't beat yourself up, it doesn't help."

"I know. I got it. I'm trying."

"Okay." He gently grabbed her chin between his thumb and forefinger and kissed her before standing up and saying, "Could you at least pretend to be watching something or reading or… anything, really? The staring off into space is making me nervous."

"I'll do you one better." She grabbed her phone from where it was sitting on the coffee table. "I can't promise you I'll ask him about… the baby," She hesitated around the words, but said them with relatively little pain, "but I will call Jamie."

"Good." Tommy smiled. "I'm here if you need me." He grabbed his laptop from the couch and headed out of the room. Jude stared at Jamie's contact on her phone. It was almost noon in Toronto, and on a Sunday he shouldn't be busy at noon. Besides, if he'd just called Tommy… She shouldn't wait. She should call him as soon as possible. She hesitated another long moment before holding her breath and dialing.

The phone rang several times, and Jude thought she may have missed him, but finally he picked up. "Jude?" he asked, a little out of breath. She wondered if maybe he'd had to run to grab the phone.

"Hey, Jamie."

"Hey! I haven't heard from you in a long time. I've been worried."

Jude sighed. "I know, I'm sorry. Tommy told me you called him."

"I didn't know what else to do. I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I'm… I mean, yes, I'm fine."

"You've been avoiding me." Jamie didn't sound angry, just sad.

"I wouldn't say avoiding…" Jude trailed off with another sigh. "Okay, fine, yes. But it's not about you. I don't know where my head's at lately."

"I get it. I just wish there was something I could do."

"I know. And I know you're trying to help. I know you don't mention… I know you've been avoiding talking about the baby, for my sake." Jude swallowed hard, forcing down the lump that had formed in her throat.

"We don't need to talk about that, Jude," Jamie said quickly.

"But that's just it, Jamie. You do need to talk about it. In a few months you're going to have a son, right?"

"Yeah, it's a boy," he confirmed softly.

"And that's the kind of thing you want to talk to your best friend about. I get it. I understand. I know you probably resent all of this. Me."

"No!" Jamie protested. "Never. If anything, I just wish that the timing was different, or– no. I just wish you weren't going through this. I wish–"

"I wish too," Jude cut him off. "Every day."

"Of course you do. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to try to lay claim to your grief or something, I just–"

"It's fine," she assured him, cutting him off again. "I just want to be happy for you without it also hurting. I want to be excited that my best friend is having a baby without missing her so much I feel like I'm going to break apart. We had a whole future planned, you know? And now that's all gone. Sometimes I think that's the hardest part. And thinking about your son, I can't help but remember that I've lost that future, that our kids were going to grow up together, and now they won't." Jude started to cry. "I want it not to hurt anymore."

"I'm so sorry, Jude." Jamie sounded like he was tearing up, too. "I don't want to hurt you."

"The thing is, it's going to hurt. At least for a while, every time you tell me something about your son, I'm going to be thinking about my daughter. He's going to hit all these milestones, and I'm going to be thinking about when I had a baby doing these things, and then a few months later," Jude couldn't hold in a sob, "he'll be older than she'll ever be." She took a few shaky breaths to calm her crying. "I would be lying if I said a part of me won't always be thinking about her. I don't know if I'll ever stop comparing them in my head. He'll start school and I'll think about how I'd be dropping her off at her first day. He'll go to university, and I'll wonder if she'd be doing the same thing. He'll get married and I'll be imagining her in a wedding dress."

"I wish there was something I could do to change that. I'm so sorry. I don't know what to do."

She sniffled and wiped the tears from her face. "No, that's not the point. The point is that it's going to hurt no matter what. It'll hurt to talk about him, but it hurts to avoid it, too. Things have changed, and there's nothing I can do to stop that, but I don't want to lose you. So… I'm just going to have to deal with it. If you can deal with knowing that there's a stupid selfish part of me that resents you for having a baby when I don't anymore, I can keep those feelings under control."

"You're not being selfish. It's a hundred percent understandable. But really, we don't have to talk about it."

"We can't just pretend you and Zeppelin don't have a kid every time we talk, Jame. I'm not saying it's all we'll talk about, and I'm not saying there won't be a point where it'll be too much and I need to change the subject. All I'm saying is that I can't avoid it forever." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Names." she said finally. "What were you thinking?"

Jamie seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then he said "I think Zeppelin likes Felix."

"Felix?" Jude sounded incredulous. "What the hell kind of a name is that?"

He laughed. "We also thought about Jude."

"Oh dear God, Jamie, no way are you naming your son after me. I mean, I'm flattered, but hell no."

"It would be weird," Jamie agreed with another laugh. "There's always James, like my dad, but I've never liked that whole legacy names thing."

"I always forget you're James Andrews Jr. I feel like I don't tease you and call you junior enough."

He snorted. "Whatever, Jude, you tease me plenty."

Jude laughed a real laugh for the first time in ages. Something loosened a little in her chest as they continued talking, first about baby names, then about NBR, about whether Spiederman and Karma would really make their marriage work this time, and it was a little more like old times. It wasn't going to be easy, but now it no longer felt impossible.

* * *

 **A/N:** Did you catch my very subtle shoutout to Orphan Black? My love for Tatiana Maslany knows no bounds, guys.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** Posting a new chapter today because why the heck not, and also because I wouldn't be surprised if the pace and plot of this story has felt a bit disjointed up to this point, since that is how I wrote it, as intentionally disconnected scenes. But never fear, after this chapter the plot starts to pick up for real. (Or... maybe do fear, because the plot continues to be very sad.)

* * *

"Nora called." Tommy's voice came from the doorway to the music room. Or, at least, what had once been Jude's music room. She hadn't been able to make music in there for the month and a half since…

She was laying on the floor with her feet up on the couch, staring at the ceiling, repeatedly tossing a ball of crumpled paper into the air and catching it. She didn't look over at Tommy, just let out a small hum of acknowledgement.

He sighed. "Are you listening to me or not?"

"I heard you," she answered flatly, still not looking at him. "Nora called."

"She wants us to come back to work, Jude."

That got her attention. She looked over at him in surprise, letting the paper ball fall next to her. "She what?"

"She wants us to come back," Tommy repeated patiently, "to work. At Bermondsey."

Jude felt a surge of terror. "Tommy…" She sat up and looked at him desperately. "I can't. I can't sing, I can't write, I just–"

"I know," he reassured her. "I can't either. That's what I told her, but she just wants us both as producers for now. Until one or both of us is ready for our own music."

"Producers?" Jude asked quietly.

He nodded. "Producers. Other artists, other music."

"Go back to work."

"Yes, Jude. Going back to work." He sounded tired. "Would you just think about it? It's a really good offer. We're lucky to get it when she could have said she'd drop us from the label, maybe even sue you for breach of contract. I'm going to tell her I'll do it, but I'd like to tell her you will too. I told her I'd talk to you, and I'm calling her back tomorrow morning, just let me know." He turned with a sigh and turned, walking back down the hall.

"Wait!" Jude said angrily, standing up and following him.

"What?" He looked over at his shoulder at her in annoyance.

"How can you go back to work?" she asked, and he stopped walking. "How can you do anything? How are you okay with this so soon?"

Anger flashed in Tommy's eyes. "What the hell makes you think I'm okay? Because I don't think that sitting around here all day doing nothing but fighting with you makes anything any better?"

"How can you pretend everything is all right?

"I'm not!" he insisted. "I can't believe you're still accusing me of that! Our daughter is gone, and nothing is ever going to make that okay, but it's been almost six weeks, and getting back to doing some kind of work is the only thing that's going to keep me somewhat sane. If you want to sit around here and wallow in your misery, be my guest, but you don't get to accuse me of dishonoring my daughter's memory because I'm want to do something to keep my head above water."

"I'm not wallowing!" she protested.

"No, that is exactly what you're doing, Jude! You sit around here all day and think about how miserable you are! You haven't let anyone take you out to do anything since Sadie left, you've stopped taking everyone's calls again, you won't listen to music, you barely even let me touch you! You're trying as hard as you can to keep yourself from feeling even the littlest bit of happiness!" He took a deep breath and said, softer. "I get that it's painful, I get that it's scary to try and live your life again, okay? It's hard for me too. I feel awful every time I let myself forget for a second, but look, punishing ourselves for being happy isn't honoring her memory, it's dishonoring it."

"Being happy has nothing to do with why feel so fucking guilty!" Jude blurted out without thinking. "I mean– I'm not– I'm not punishing myself, okay, I'm just…" She put her head in her hands.

Tommy's eyebrows shot up. "So you are punishing yourself."

"No, I'm not," she groaned, not lifting her head.

"No, you are. You really are trying to keep yourself as miserable as possible. Jude, what the hell? Why?" He grabbed one of her hands and pulled it away from her face.

"Because it's my fault," she whispered, tears in her eyes.

"No it isn't." Tommy shook his head, looking very sad. "It's no one's fault. We've talked about this. She just had a cold. We didn't know. The doctors didn't know. We brought her to the hospital as soon as we could have. We didn't know, and we couldn't have known. It's not our fault."

But Jude shook her head. "It's not just that, I… No. You know what? Never mind. Please just forget it, okay? You go back to work, I get it. I'm not ready, but that's great that you are. I'm sorry I said anything." She started to turn back, to shut herself in the music room again.

"No!" he protested, grabbing her arm. "Please talk to me." She shook her head. "Jude," he said softly, pleading. "You need to talk to me."

"I didn't want her," she whispered, so quietly that Tommy wasn't sure he'd heard her right.

"What?"

She looked up at him and repeated herself a bit more loudly. "I didn't want her, Tommy. When I found out I was pregnant, I didn't want it. I didn't want any of it. I kept wishing…"

Tommy sighed. "Jude, come on. You were scared. Of everything changing, of losing your career, of… well, this." He put a hand under her chin, tilting her face up to look at him. "It's not that you didn't want her, girl. You were just scared."

Jude started to cry in earnest now. "But I–"

"You loved her," Tommy said firmly, looking her in the eyes. "You loved her so much. You were an amazing mom. You inspire me every day." He gently brushed her hair behind her ears, pulling her face towards his, resting his forehead on hers. "I love you." He kissed her forehead and pulled her into a hug. "I love you, Jude. You can't do this to yourself, alright? None of this is your fault. You did everything you were supposed to. I never would have thought I could be a dad, you know that?" Her tears were soaking through his shirt, and he held her tighter, rubbing her back with his right hand. "The man I was when we met could never have done that. Are you kidding me? I would have run away the second it came up and never looked back. But I didn't. And that is all on you, girl. I wouldn't be the person I am today without you."

Jude clung to him, a sob tearing through her. He pressed his lips to her hair, and after a long moment she looked up at him. Something shifted in her as she looked into his face, the dam bursting on something that had been locked away inside her since losing Caroline. Through her tears she didn't see the father of her dead child, her companion in the grief she thought would tear her in two. The person she saw instead was the man she'd been in love with for the better part of seven years, looking at her with sorrow and concern, but mostly with a love that was deeper than she deserved, and it turned her heart inside out. She put a hand on his cheek and whispered "Thank you." He gave her a small smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners, tilting his head in a version of the look he'd always saved only for her.

She pulled his face toward hers and their lips met in their first real kiss in weeks. She wrapped her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss, and Tommy's hand on her lower back pressed her closer to him. She pulled away after a long moment, and Tommy let out a small sigh as Jude turned away, taking a few steps down the hallway, but she turned around again and gave a little smile. "You coming?"

Tommy raised his eyebrows as she grabbed his hand, pulling him gently in the direction of their bedroom. "You sure?" he asked, pausing in the doorway. "Because you said you weren't ready, and I get that."

Jude turned and nodded. "I want to, if you do."

He responded by pulling his shirt over his head and closing the door behind him.

.

The sex was less than perfect, clumsy and almost awkward at times, as if they were trying to rediscover each other, to remember how to fit together. Jude's tears came back, too, flowing down her cheeks. They both needed this, though, the closeness of their bodies chipping away a little at the feeling of isolation they'd both been battling.

"Are we going to make it, Tommy?" Jude asked afterwards, her head on his bare chest, curled up with him under the covers.

"Yes," Tommy said, without hesitation.

She looked up at him. "How do you know? A lot of couples… Tommy a lot of relationships don't survive losing… How can you be sure we will?"

Tommy sighed. "I guess I can't." He tightened his arms around her. "But all I know is I don't want to live without you. No matter how hard it gets, I would still rather be with you than without you."

She pulled herself up to press her lips to the side of his face. "Me too." After another long moment she said, "I'll go back."

"Hmm?" Tommy asked.

"To work. I'll go back with you. You can tell Nora I'm coming back too."

"You don't have to. If you're not ready you're not ready."

"No. You were right. Nothing is going to get any better by me sitting around here. It'll be… it'll be good. To work again. To have something else to concentrate on."

He kissed her hair. "Okay. I think it'll be good too."


	7. Chapter 7

The next Monday, Jude steeled herself to enter Bermondsey Records. She looked to her left and noticed that Tommy looked very pale. "Breathe, babe," she said quietly, taking his hand and pulling it up to her lips. "It'll be good."

He turned and gave her a little smile. "It'll be great."

They were greeted by a relatively quiet building when they walked in, and the few people who were walking around didn't acknowledge them, which was really for the best. Jude had worried Emily would try to organize some sort of welcome back party, and they'd have to stand around and smile at people and act like they weren't both terrified that their musical abilities had disappeared and that coming back to work was a horrible mistake. But, as it turned out, Emily was out of town for the week. Jude felt a little guilty for being relieved.

Nora met them in her office with a smile. "Welcome back, both of you."

"Thanks for giving us the chance to step away from the music for a while. Our own, I mean," Jude said as her boss hugged her.

"Well, I understand that music is a very personal and emotional thing, and that you might need some time, but during that time I didn't want your talents to go to waste." She smiled and then clapped her hands, suddenly, making Jude jump a little. "Well, let's get right to it then. Tom, if all goes well, you're producing the first full-length album for Fitting Ideal."

"Wait, that's Jude's guitarist's other band, isn't it?"

"It is. I've decided to give them a chance. They have a self-produced EP that's better than I'd have expected, and Christopher has been very persistent."

"When you say 'if all goes well'…" Jude said curiously.

"I've told them they get enough studio time to give me one track, and then I and a few other members of my board will look over it and decide if we want to back them for a whole album."

Tommy raised his eyebrows. "Wow, so there's a lot riding on this."

"I want to hear what they can do with the best of my resources behind them, and that includes you." Nora smiled. "You'll be fine. I believe they could be diamonds in the rough, and I think you have experience with that." She looked pointedly at Jude and gave an uncharacteristically playful wink, which made Tommy smile. "They're in conference room B upstairs, today you can meet with them, get to know each other, work out what their goals are and how they match up with yours, et cetera, et cetera. Then in half an hour I have studio four reserved for you to hear them play and get an idea of their sound. You don't need to record anything today unless you want it to play around with."

"Yeah, sounds good." Tommy said. "What's the deadline for the single?"

"Three weeks, give or take. I'm willing to bend that. One of the things you need to do today and tomorrow is set up a recording schedule, and you and I can make sure it works with available studio time. I do want this quickly, but I also want it done well, so you can take as much time as you feel you need."

"Sounds good. I'm sure Chris is excited," Jude said. "Can't wait."

"Oh. You won't be working with them, Jude. I don't need two producers on the same artist." Nora looked surprised.

"Oh. Of course, yeah, that makes sense. Sorry, I guess I'm so used to working with Tommy I didn't think."

"Benjamin Ray Kite," Nora said with a smile.

"Pardon?" Jude asked.

"He'll be your artist. Heard of him?"

"Uh… I don't think so. Should I have?"

"Not necessarily, but he has a fairly substantial online following. We officially signed him a few weeks ago. Two year contract. His music is not unlike yours, I would say, though perhaps with more indie/folk influences than punk rock. He's talented. Very promising. I think you'll like him. I'm headed to a meeting, so you can have my office to meet with him, and then studio one. As far as a schedule, we're in the process of setting up performances and publicity things, so we'll want to record a single to release soon, to fit with that timeline. I have a few more details to work out long term, but I've e-mailed you a proposed schedule for the next two weeks. If you have questions or something needs to be changed, let me know. It's not too strenuous. I want to ease you back in."

"Wow, okay. Uh, thanks."

"The important thing with Benjamin is that he's not exactly new to making and releasing music, but he is new to some of the industry aspects. I think at this point those things are old hat for you, but you still remember what it was like being exposed to it for the first time. I think it's a good match for the both of you. Any questions?" Jude suddenly felt lightheaded, her pulse starting to pound in her ears. She put a hand up to her head, and her boss noticed.

"This is a lot," she said softly. "But you'll be fine." Nora frowned suddenly, and leaned against the edge of her desk, absentmindedly putting the arm of her reading glasses in her mouth, studying their faces, as if deciding whether to say something. After a moment she sighed. "'I've been meaning to say…" She took a deep breath. "When I was young, not quite 19, I lost a baby. A daughter. She was born with a heart defect, and she only lived a few days. It wasn't a surprise, and the father wasn't in the picture. Really, I wasn't equipped to raise a child at that point in my life, but that didn't make it easy. Losing her tore my life to pieces for a while. I won't say I understand what you're going through, but I do think I can empathize, and I'll help in any way I can."

Jude was rendered speechless, feeling a bit sick, but Tommy spoke. "You've already been really great, offering us this chance. It does help. Thank you."

Nora nodded, and looked at them a moment longer before straightening back up and looking at her watch. She was their brusque, intimidating boss again as she said "I'm going to be late for that meeting. If you don't have any questions, I'll be going." When neither Tommy nor Jude spoke, Nora said, "Alright then. It's good to have you back. And the minute you decide you're ready to begin working for me as an artist again, Jude, or, Tom, you want to continue with plans for a solo album, I will do everything I can to accommodate. Tom, your artists should be upstairs, and Benjamin should be in the lobby waiting for Jude. I'll send him in as I leave." She kissed Jude on both cheeks, and put a hand on Tommy's shoulder before walking past them and out of the office.

"Jesus," Jude breathed when Nora was out of the room.

"It's a lot." Tommy sighed and pulled Jude into a hug.

She buried her face in his shoulder and gave a muffled, "Yeah."

"Producing music that's not your own for the first time," Tommy said. "It would be a big step anyway. It's okay to be nervous about it. But you're going to be great."

Jude looked up. "You think so?" She looked like she was fighting tears.

"I know so." He smiled. "After all, I taught you everything you know."

Jude rolled her eyes, but smiled too. "You did not teach me _everything_ I know."

"Close enough," he whispered, kissing her.

"You're an ass," she teased between kisses, but she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, his fingers tangling in her hair. They broke apart a moment later at the sound of someone clearing their throat. They turned to see a tall, dark-skinned guy standing in the doorway. Jude felt her face flush. "Oh! Sorry."

"No, um, I'm sorry. Nora told me to…" He looked embarrassed. "I didn't mean to interrupt anything."

"You're fine. Come in." She stepped forward and shook his hand. "I'm Jude Harrison. Nice to meet you."

"I, uh, I know. I mean, I'm a fan."

"Thanks." Jude smiled at his somewhat starstruck expression. "I assume you're…"

"Oh! Benjamin Ray Kite. Benjamin. Or Ben. Whatever works as long as it's not Benny." He laughed a little self-consciously. He had blue eyes that stood out in contrast to his skin, and Jude registered vaguely that he was very attractive.

"Benjamin Ray Kite. All three names? Like, what, Neil Patrick Harris?"

"I guess. It, uh, it's my YouTube username, so it's how I'm known."

"Makes sense. Um… This is Tommy. Tom Quincy. You probably knew that, though."

"Nice to meet you," Tommy said, and they shook hands. He turned back to Jude and said, quietly, "I should go, then. You good?"

She nodded. "I'm good. You?" Tommy nodded. Jude squeezed his hand. "I'll see you in a few hours."

He hugged her again. "We get through today, and it gets easier," he said softly in her ear. "I love you." He pulled back to touch his forehead to hers.

"I love you too," she murmured, then pulled away.

"Nice to meet you, Benjamin," Tommy said, giving Jude's hand one last squeeze before heading out of the office.

"Sorry about… all of that," Jude sighed as she closed the office door. "It's… sort of a rough day. For both of us." The look of awkward sympathy on his face told her he already knew. "Don't worry about it." Jude smiled, trying to sound cheerful. "Sit." They sat at the little round table Nora had in the corner of her office. Jude put her chin in her hand and said "So. Tell me about yourself."

"Um… Alright, well, I was born in Manchester, raised in London by my mum… I'm 21, I'm a Pieces…" Benjamin laughed. "I don't know what you want me to say."

Jude chuckled. "Okay, okay. Tell me… How did you end up here? Take me through your road to this point in your career. Your musical journey."

"Oh, alright. Well, um… I guess… my half brother was a musician. When I was 11 and he was 25, he died. Overdose."

Jude gave a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry."

Benjamin shrugged one shoulder. "We weren't close. Mum and I heard from him a few times a year, maybe. I looked up to him when I was really young, but as we both got older he changed. The drugs…" He shook his head. "Anyway, when he died he left me all his instruments. Drum set, three guitars—one acoustic, two electric—and an electric keyboard. It all just sort of sat in our house for a while. I took piano lessons, and I was good enough at it, but other than that I'd never really been into music as a kid. I was more about video games. Then, just after I turned 12, there was a boy in my class at school who played the guitar. Badly, in retrospect, but that didn't matter. He started bringing his little 3/4 acoustic to school, and the girls suddenly couldn't get enough of him."

Jude laughed at that. "I feel confident in saying it's a pretty irresistible instrument."

"Heather Morrow thought so too," Benjamin said with a smile. "And I found Heather Morrow pretty irresistible."

"Wait, so you taught yourself to play guitar to impress a girl? Seems like a lot of effort for not a lot of payoff."

Benjamin laughed. "It would have been, especially because she moved away a few months later. But, I don't know, I just found that I really liked it. Really getting into music was like… waking up. The next few years were sort of rough for me, you know, not for any particular reason, just angsty teenage years or whatever, and I threw myself more and more into music. Same old story. Filled notebooks with terrible love songs, and then better love songs. Briefly tried starting a band with some of my mates, and it was a disaster, went back to writing songs in my bedroom."

"Same old story," Jude repeated, thoughtfully. "But the fact that you're here means it couldn't have been. Not really. What made it different?"

"When I was 15 I posted a cover on YouTube of Plain White T's 'Hey There Delilah'." Jude snorted and Benjamin rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, but anyway, it got something like 300 views in a couple days. It's not much to me now, coming from almost 800,000 subscribers, but it was enough that I was motivated to post more, and a year later I was consistently getting multiple hundreds of thousands of views, and I had some cover videos break a million. I gradually stepped up my video quality, started posting my original music, and before I knew it I was making serious money from just the youtube ad revenue and selling recordings on bandcamp. I did some collabs online with other YouTube musicians; I also started playing concerts and YouTube events around London. I played at VidCon—a YouTube conference in Los Angeles—a couple of years in a row, and did some other concerts while I was there. I independently released an EP… I was able to buy my mum a house, even. You know, it's been my career for real for a while now, and then a few months ago Kevin contacted me saying he was A&R for Bermondsey Records and they'd like to have me. So I signed here." He shrugged. "I guess that's it."

Jude studied him for a moment, then asked "Why, though?"

Benjamin looked confused. "Why what?"

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to turn you away, but why would you choose to sign with a label? It seems like a lot of people in your position, with your kind of internet fame and following, would choose to continue releasing their music independently, or at least with a smaller independent label, rather than hand it over to a big record company. People would view it as selling out." She hastened to clarify. "Not that _I_ think it's selling out. Obviously I've been a major record label baby my whole career, and Bermondsey has been great to me. I'm just wondering what brings someone who has their own career independently to sign with a label like this."

"I don't feel like I'm selling out." He shrugged. "Kevin made a good argument and a good offer. There are things a big label can offer that you can't get as solely a YouTube star. It's sort of a strange limbo. You're famous and successful in a way, but at the same time you're still a kid sitting in his basement filming himself playing guitar. I was promised when I signed that I still own almost everything I've posted online up to this point, with very little needing to be taken down, and that I don't need to give up my YouTube channel. It's still an integral part of my career, but now I have the money of this label backing me, and the chance to really expand my audience."

"So you're in it for the fame, then?"

"Not exactly. I just want people to hear my music, Jude. I want to perform live more, and reach more people in different audiences. Plus, the quality of music recorded in my home, produced by me… it's inferior, but renting studio space and a producer is really expensive as an independent artist. This way I get paid for using the space and the equipment instead of paying someone else." He grinned. "And they hadn't even told me _Jude Harrison_ would be my producer until a few days ago, well after everything was signed. You're just an amazing bonus." He winked.

"Oh my god, stop." Jude rolled her eyes and laughed, then stopped, narrowing her eyes at Benjamin suspiciously. "Wait… did you ever cover anything of mine?"

"Uh, yeah, quite a lot, really." He looked a little embarrassed. "'Skin' was one of the first covers I posted that got multiple thousands of views. And people said my acoustic version of 'I Just Wanted Your Love' was better than the original." His eyes widened when he realized what he'd said. "Not that it was. It definitely wasn't."

Jude laughed and shook her head. "If we're talking my 3rd album, then I'm sure your acoustic cover _was_ better. I'll fight you on the remix, though. That one I'm proud of. Even if I did have to pay for studio time myself."

"It was worth it," Benjamin said sincerely. "I don't normally go for remixes, but My Return was a great album."

"Thanks." Jude smiled. "So, anyway, from what I understand, our immediate goal is a killer single. Get you on the radio, get you opening for someone with a more substantial audience, and then we start on a whole album."

"That's my understanding of it too."

"Well then," Jude smiled and stood up, gesturing to the door, "let's get to the studio. Show me what you've got."


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** This chapter is very short, and kind of a filler, so I'm posting it now.

* * *

A few hours later, Jude was feeling better than she had expected. She assumed that by the end of her first work day, even the half-day, she'd be desperate to just go home and curl up under the covers, but she actually wasn't feeling too bad. She liked Benjamin. He was truly talented, even if there was a lot they needed to work on.

"Okay, Ben, one last question," she asked as he stepped out of the studio, sitting down next to her behind the board. "How's your charting?"

"My what?"

Jude smiled. "Charting. Taking the music that's in your head and writing it down?"

"I mean, I mostly work from chords on lyrics sheets…"

"For other musicians, though. Can you write up a lead sheet that another pianist or bassist or brass players or someone could read?"

He looked a little like a deer caught in headlights. "Um… Maybe? I don't… I can read music, but I've never really had formal training or anything. Do I need to?"

Jude shook her head. "You're fine. We have people who can do the charting for you if we need it, or I can do it, and I think you have enough musical knowledge that you'll pick it up pretty fast. I was just wondering, because it's a useful skill to have when you need to work with other musicians. Also, for legal reasons, every song you record needs a lead sheet written up, because that's technically the part you copyright."

"Did you start out knowing how?"

Jude laughed again. "No way. Tommy taught me during the first year we worked together. It's not super hard, but it's not something you just know how to do, although I'm sure you've worked from a lot of lead sheets. Like I said, you're fine." Benjamin was frowning, and Jude recognized the expression and sighed. "I'm going to have to change things, Ben. We barely scratched the surface today. I will have criticisms regarding basically all aspects of your music, you will need to change the way you think about some things, and there are a lot of skills you need that you don't have yet. I know that sucks, since you've been doing this for a long time, and you think of yourself as a professional musician. You're very good, but you need to be better, and that is my job. Okay?"

"Yeah, right, fine. I mean, I trust your judgement."

"You may want to strangle me sometimes, but you'll learn the difference between something I suggest you change just because it's my personal opinion, and suggestions I make because I know better. It's a steep learning curve, but you'll be okay. At least you're not a 15-year-old contest winner." She grinned at him and he laughed.

"Your learning curve was rough?"

"Oh, it was brutal. My first meeting with Tommy, I walked out on him."

His eyes widened. "You did?"

Jude nodded. "Like I said, I was 15, and not the epitome of professionalism at the time. I'd won this big contest, gotten this recording contract, had what I thought was a beautiful song, and all of a sudden I'm in the studio and Little Tommy Q from freaking Boyz Attack is tearing me to shreds. I wasn't happy."

"I'm at least fairly certain I can promise not to walk out on you."

"Well, obviously I am much nicer than Tommy," Jude joked. "You won't have to."

Benjamin grinned. "Your past musical repertoire also inspires a little more confidence."

Tommy's voice came from the doorway. "Is that so?"

Jude turned in surprise. "Oh, hey Tom."

"Sorry," Benjamin said sheepishly. "It was only a joke."

"Whatever. It's Boyz Attack. I'm used to it." Tommy rolled his eyes. He looked exhausted, his hair mussed, apparently from having run his hands through it, something Jude knew he only did when he was really stressed.

Benjamin said, "About a year ago, I collabed with some friends on a cover of Pick Up the Pieces, combined with What A Catch, Donnie by Fall Out Boy. Mashups are big right now, you know."

"I'll have to look that up," Tommy said with a tense smile.

"Uh, yeah," Jude said with a slight frown. "I have a marathon of his videos ahead of me tonight anyway." She lowered her voice and asked, "You alright?"

"Fine." He shrugged. "You were supposed to be done almost half an hour ago, though. I've been waiting for you, but I think they're gonna need the studio in a minute."

"Really?" Jude stood up and looked at the clock, surprised. "Huh. Sorry. Must have lost track of time." She turned to Benjamin and held her hand out. He stood and shook it as she said, "Okay, that was a good first session. Tomorrow I want to hear the top three songs you're thinking for a single. Even if you already played them for me today, I want to hear them again. We'll pick one by the end of the day so we can start arranging it. Sounds good?"

"Sounds great." He smiled a dazzling smile. "It was seriously fantastic meeting you. And you too," he added, looking at Tommy.

Tommy replied with a curt nod and turned, walking out of the room. Jude told Benjamin she'd see him tomorrow, then caught up to Tommy and took his hand, stopping him as they turned a corner into the main lobby. "Hey. Are you okay?"

Tommy ran a hand through his hair. "I'm fine."

"You're messing up your hair. You only do that when you're not fine."

"I'm fine, Jude!" he snapped. "Leave it!"

"Don't yell at me!" Jude frowned and crossed her arms.

Tommy took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "Sorry. But I'm okay. I don't want to talk about it, alright? I just want to go home."

Jude gave him a concerned look, but nodded. "Okay. Can I grab some coffee first?" He nodded and they headed to hospitality. The pot was empty, so Jude put on another one with an apologetic look to Tommy. He shrugged and sat down at the counter, putting his head in his hands. "How's the band?" Jude asked him as the coffee brewed.

"Fine," Tommy said, with his head still down. Jude let out a "hmm" and Tommy raised his head to look at her. "They're good, but a little rough around the edges. They're trying to mix the softer punk rock stuff with a harder, more metal kind of sound, and it's not quite blending right. I get the feeling they have artistic differences within the band, and I'm worried it'll end up being down to me to resolve them." He gave a heavy sigh. "And about halfway through I wanted to strangle the drummer."

"Because of his playing or his personality?"

"Personality." Tommy grimaced. "Everyone else is pretty pleasant to work with, you know I've always liked Chris, but Derek… may be a challenge."

"Sorry." She put a hand on his forearm, briefly, stroking it with her thumb.

"It's okay. They have potential, I just sort of have my work cut out for me, I guess." He sighed and muttered "Three hours with them and already I seriously feel like I need a drink."

"Coffee instead?" Jude asked gently.

Tommy nodded, and she poured him a cup. "How's your artist? Benjamin whatever whatever," he asked.

Jude smiled. "Benjamin Ray Kite. He's good. He's definitely an industry newbie, but with just enough experience that he doesn't _think_ he's a newbie, and there's a lot we need to work on, but he's good. I really like him."

"I'm sure you do," Tommy muttered sarcastically under his breath.

Jude looked confused. "What?"

"Nothing." Tommy rolled his eyes. "He does the whole… smoulder thing."

"Smoulder?" Jude laughed.

"You know," Tommy said, putting his face close to hers and looking at her intensely from under his eyelashes, "smoulder."

"I didn't notice." Jude laughed again, rolling her eyes. "But you're one to talk. You're the king of the smoulder."

That actually earned a smile from Tommy, who kissed her before pulling away and asking, "Can we go home now?"

"Yes. Of course." She smiled. "But thank you for getting me to do this. Coming back was the right decision."

"I'm glad you think so, at least," Tommy muttered with a sigh as they headed out.


	9. Chapter 9

"Okay, Ben, that's enough for right now. We got a good take. You can come out here and listen. Tell me what you think." It was their second week of working together, and Jude had finally gotten Benjamin to agree with her about her choice of single. Because of his indecision, Jude worried, they'd need to work extra at some point soon to get back on schedule.

Benjamin nodded and took off his headphones, coming back through the door to sit next to her behind the board. "She's beautiful," he said quietly, gesturing to the photo of Caroline that Jude had taped next to the computer.

"She is." Jude smiled sadly and reached out a hand to touch the photo.

"That's your daughter, right?"

She nodded. "Caroline."

"She's beautiful," he said again. "I'm sorry."

Jude nodded again, slowly. "It's… It is what it is. I'm dealing with it."

"It's why you're producing me instead of working on your own music, isn't it? Because of what happened to her?" Jude turned sharply to frown at him, and he apologized quickly. "Sorry. None of my business. Sorry."

Her expression softened. "No. You're… you're right. I can't sing anymore. I can't write. It's like it's all stuck inside of me, and I can't get it out, and I just…" She shook her head quickly, as if to clear it. She smiled, though her eyes were still sad. "But I'm happy to be producing. It's a new direction for me, and it's good." She turned back to the computer and hit play, ending the conversation.

After he'd grudgingly admitted that she'd been right with the changes she'd made, and she had, with effort, refrained from gloating, Jude said, "Want to go get lunch?"

Benjamin looked a little surprised. "Sure. With or without your… uh… Tom."

Jude rolled her eyes. "My Tom is working. Plus, you and I need to talk about how to pitch a single to radio DJs. It's a working lunch. So… without." What she didn't add was that she and Tommy had been at each other's throats all week, snapping at one another over everything, and that neither would really want to eat lunch together anyway, if only to avoid that tension in the middle of a work day.

Benjamin nodded and smiled. "Oh. Okay."

Jude narrowed her eyes at him. "You look relieved."

"No, not at all!" Benjamin insisted. "Why would I…" Jude continued to stare at him with her eyes narrowed until he admitted, "Okay, fine. He doesn't like me very much."

Jude looked surprised. "Tommy? He likes you fine! Why wouldn't he like you?"

Benjamin looked uncomfortable. "No reason. I guess it could all be in my head."

Jude gave him a concerned frown. "No, there's something you're not telling me. What happened?"

"He may have… told me to stay away from you."

"He _what?!"_ Jude cried incredulously. "No he didn't."

"Not in so many words," Benjamin admitted. "He was all 'so, you and Jude have been working pretty closely.'" He imitated Tommy's accent in a voice lower than the one Tom actually used. "And so I said 'yeah, I guess' and he…" he hesitated. "I'm sure it wasn't anything. He didn't mean anything by it."

"What did he say?" Jude was becoming angrier by the second. "Benjamin. Tell me."

"He said something like 'just be careful. Jude's been through something really rough lately, and sometimes when she's hurting she has trouble with the lines between personal and professional, so it's up to you not to cross them.'" Jude was stunned into silence, her mouth hanging open. Benjamin hurriedly added, "I'm sure it was more of a 'don't hurt her' than a 'don't fuck her'. You two are solid, right? I mean, you've been together for a long time." Jude continued to stare in shocked and increasingly furious silence. Benjamin looked like he deeply regretted saying anything at all. "Look, I'm sure he trusts you, he's probably just protective. Besides, he said this a week ago, he's probably changed his mind by now, and I guess if his only basis for a producer-artist relationship involving you is you and him… I really wasn't supposed to tell you about this…" He tapped his fingers nervously on the desk a few times. "Okay, Jude, you're scaring me."

"Sorry." Jude forced a smile. "Um… I think I need to talk to Tommy real fast, and then you and I will go get lunch. Okay?"

"Jude, I didn't mean to–"

"You're fine. I'll see you in fifteen. You didn't do anything wrong." Jude stood and headed for the door. "No lines crossed," she muttered as she left.

.

Tommy was sitting at the sound board looking like he was going to tear his hair out. "You _need_ to cut that finger noise _out_ when you slide," he was saying. "I am 100% serious, Nick. I don't know if you think it sounds good or what, but it _does not."_ He took his hand off the button. Nick must have apologized in Tommy's headphones, because Tommy sighed heavily and said, "Okay. If you need me to show you some pointers, I can. I know this kind of guitar isn't your main instrument. But seriously, that is my number one pet peeve, and I have told you at least ten times to fix it."

Jude felt a twinge of sympathy for Tommy, then immediately squashed it by remembering how angry she was at him. She walked up behind him, and Nick said something and gestured to her. Tommy turned and looked surprised. "Nick, you can take lunch, we'll try it again in 45 minutes," he said quickly before taking off the headphones and turning to her. "Is everything okay?"

"No," Jude said bluntly. "We need to talk." She crossed her arms and her scowl darkened.

"Um… Okay… Let me turn everything off." He turned back to the computer and made sure everything was saved before resetting the mixer.

While he was doing that, Nick came through the doors, grabbing his jacket from the couch. "Hey." He smiled at her, and she acknowledged him with a nod of her head.

As he was going past her, she sighed, uncrossing her arms and grabbing his arm. "Hey, Nick," she said, "if you hold your fingers like this," she demonstrated, "instead of like this, it's easier to cut the noise down. Just arch them more, okay? It'll feel weird at first, but you'll have more control of the chord changes and it'll help with the slide noise."

He imitated her finger position and she nodded. "Thanks, Jude!"

She smiled a little at him. "No problem." He left and she turned back to Tommy, frowning again.

Tommy smiled. "Thanks. It was driving me crazy. Hopefully that helps."

"Yeah, well, guitar's not really your main instrument either, and it is mine," she said curtly.

His smile dropped as she continued to scowl at him. "Jude, what's wrong?" She just shook her head, and Tommy frowned too. "You interrupted me while I was working. There had better be something you need other than to stand there glaring at me."

"Sorry," she snapped. "I guess I have trouble with the line between personal and professional."

He looked confused. "What the hell are you…" His eyes widened as he realized. "Oh."

"Yeah, oh," she said in a huff.

"Look, I don't know what he told you…"

"This is not about him."

"Like hell it isn't!" Tommy protested. "He said something to you, and now you're yelling at me!"

"You insulted my professionalism, and _to my artist,_ no less," Jude hissed. "What part of that is his fault?"

"I was just trying to protect you."

"Protect me?" Jude cried. "Are you _fucking_ kidding me?"

"I don't trust him, Jude!"

"Trust me, then!" she shouted, looking hurt. When Tommy didn't reply, she said, "You're jealous."

"Of him?" Tommy scoffed. "Please."

"Not of him, you idiot! This isn't _about_ him!" She lowered her voice, venomously. "Of me."

Tommy looked incredulous. "You think I'm jealous of you? What the hell do I have to be jealous of?"

"Because I'm doing better." The truth of her words hit her as she spoke them, and her voice grew less angry, but more disgusted, with every word. "I'm happier. I'm not crying into your shoulder every night. I'm doing _well._ I like producing Benjamin, and I'm good at it. I'm finally starting to feel like myself, and you can't stand it." She let the accusation hang in the air. Tommy was staring at her with his mouth slightly open.

After a long moment, Tommy said quietly, "You think I don't want you to be happy?"

"I think… you liked being the stable one the last few months."

Anger flashed in Tommy's eyes. "You think I _liked_ that?" he hissed. "You think I enjoyed picking you up off the floor? That I liked worrying about you all the time? That I wanted you snapping at me every time I tried to help?!" He was shouting now. "You actually think I _appreciated_ how selfish you've been since Caroline died? I've been grieving too, Jude, but you wouldn't let me! I can't be sad for five seconds, because there's no room in your life for anyone except you!" Jude felt the words like a slap in the face. He stood up, his expression furious. "You have the _nerve_ to tell me I liked being the stable one?" Jude started to shake, trying to fight back the tears forming in her eyes. He saw it, and pain flashed across his face, guilt and anger warring in his expression. Guilt won, and he sighed, reaching out to her. "Jude…"

"Don't," she said quietly, pulling away. A few tears escaped her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. She didn't wipe them away. "What I meant was that when we came back here, you expected it to be good for you, and hard for me. You expected to feel successful, to enjoy your work, and you expected it to be too much for me. Maybe you didn't necessarily _want_ me to come crying to you, or to have to talk me off the ledge when it was too hard, but you expected it. And maybe that's my fault." Her voice cracked a little and she cleared her throat. "But what happened instead is that I'm doing well, and you're not. I love being back here, and you hate it. I'm sorry if you're unhappy, Tom, I am, but you don't get to try and sabotage me. It's unfair. And honestly? It's pathetic."

"Sabotage you?" Tommy looked incredulous. "I never–"

Jude cut him off "Undermining me, making my artist see me as anything other than a professional? That _is_ sabotaging me."

"Jude!" he protested.

"No!" she shouted. "I'm sorry, if I haven't been the best girlfriend. If I haven't been supportive. It's been hard, and I'm sorry, okay? I. Am. Sorry. But this? What you said to my artist? It's unacceptable." He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off again. "Don't even try, Tommy," she said severely, spinning on her heel and storming out of the studio, ignoring his cry for her to wait. She worried for a moment that he'd follow her out and start shouting at her in the hallway, but he didn't. The tears were still burning at the backs of her eyes, and she felt a sob rising in her chest, so she ducked into an equipment closet and allowed herself to lose it for a minute before she took a few deep breaths, letting the darkness soothe her, and, after a quick trip to fix her makeup, went to meet Benjamin.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** To the guest reviewer who said they hope Jude and Tommy don't end up together:

I can't respond fully to this at this point in the story without spoiling things I'd rather not spoil. At the end of the story maybe I'll address this concern again, that Jude and Tommy are not healthy together, because on many levels I very much agree. Jommy is my most problematic of faves. In real life there'd be no question in my mind that they're better off apart. I really think that in the context of the show itself they're very much better off apart as well, which is why I'm a somewhat outspoken proponent of the finale.

In the context of this specific story, however, it's much more complicated than that given the story I've set up (both in the two previous stories and in this one). I take these characters on a very rough and somewhat meandering journey, and at the end of it I might give my thoughts on where I think the greater victory lies: in them ending up together or ending up apart. You are not wrong, but it's more complex than "their relationship is toxic."

I will also say in my own defense, given that every chaptered story I've written up to this point has them finding their way back to one another, that fanfiction _is_ a fantasy. I'm a sucker for the angst and the longing, but I've always been a sucker for the reunion as well. It's certainly in no way meant to represent my idea of a healthy relationship (at least it's not now... I can't totally speak for my 14-year-old self and her warped ideas of romance), but in the end, this is all just fanfiction for a mid-2000s teen drama, and I write what I enjoy writing and reading, even if that's sometimes cheesy and dramatic and utterly unrealistic

* * *

That evening, at home, they barely looked at each other. After they ate dinner in silence, Jude locked herself in the music room and tried once again to write. When she gave up after an hour or so, Tommy was gone. A note on the counter said "Meeting -T" and she sighed. She didn't want to be so angry at him, but every time she thought about what he'd said…

She found herself humming Benjamin's single to herself in the shower. Thinking about how much they still had left to do before the deadline, and how little she wanted to spend time with Tommy, she grabbed her cell phone after she got out of the shower and called Benjamin.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Benjamin, you don't have plans tomorrow night do you?"

"Um…" He sounded confused. "No, I don't think so. Why, what'd you have in mind?" She heard the flirtatious hint to his tone and ignored it.

"We don't have the studio until 4 tomorrow afternoon, and you're only scheduled to work until 7, but we're behind schedule on the single because _someone_ couldn't agree with me on my song choice for two goddamn days." She said it teasingly, not angrily. "I need you to stay late with me, if you can. We're talking all-nighter, maybe. I still have to clear it with Nora, but I don't think anything else is going on, so I'm pretty sure she'll say yes."

"Wow, okay. Uh, yeah, I can't think of any reason I couldn't. Sure."

"Good. I shouldn't need you for the whole night, a lot of what needs to get done is just production stuff after you're finished recording. Maybe about midnight you can be done, and I'll work until 3 or 4 AM. You probably don't need to stay for that. Unless you want to, I guess."

"I'd love to."

"Sorry to take your evening."

"Not at all. Working late sounds fun, actually. Empty studio, middle of the night… It'll be fun."

"This way we'll be ahead of schedule, and if something changes or goes wrong, we have time. We'll get lots of work done." She emphasized the word "work."

"Absolutely."

"It's not a slumber party, Ben. It's work," Jude warned.

"I know," Benjamin laughed. "I'm with you, madame producer. All the way."

Jude rolled her eyes. "Fine. Get some sleep, okay? I want you to actually be able to focus tomorrow. It would be good if you could sing, too."

"Aye aye, captain." Jude couldn't help but laugh at that. Benjamin added, "Hey, say hi to Quincy for me." She hung up without responding.

… ... … ... …

"Can you take your motorcycle, please?" Jude asked as Tommy put on his shirt the next morning. She was sitting up in bed when he came back from taking a shower. It was the first thing she'd said to him since their fight the day before.

He turned to look at her. "What?"

"I need my car, and yours is still taking an eternity to get fixed," she sighed.

"You're actually that mad at me?" He looked hurt. "I was going to come get you, but you're so mad at me that you won't ride in a car with me. Seriously?"

"No." Jude rolled her eyes. "It doesn't make sense for you to go to work for three hours, come get me, and then go back to work."

"But it apparently made sense when we made the plan. We're leaving work at the same time later, Jude, I don't mind coming back here to–"

"No, we're not. That's the point. I'm working late. It has nothing to do with being unwilling to be in the same car with you, because _I_ am not that petty. Can you just take the bike or call a car or _something?"_

"You're working late?"

"Yes," she sighed. "Almost definitely past midnight, maybe all night. Too late to be riding my motorcycle home, late enough I really don't want to have to call a car or a cab… I just want to have my car. Please. I am asking you nicely."

Tommy stared at her for a second, then gave an exasperated sigh. "Yeah, fine, whatever." He turned to grab a belt, muttering, "Sure, pull an all-nighter to avoid me. Real mature." Jude refrained from retorting, instead laying back down and pulling the blankets over her head.

.

Tommy considered going to apologize a dozen times during the day. His phone burned a hole in his pocket all morning, and he felt Jude's presence in the next studio like a phantom ache all afternoon. He _wanted_ to apologize. He wanted her to smile at him, to put her arms around him, say she was sorry too… But the thought of going in there, in front of Benjamin, with his tail between his legs? In the end he couldn't do it.

He was angry at her, too, and the thought of her pulling an all-nighter just to spite him, with a guy that did nothing but flirt with her, made him furious. Maybe he had been out of line with what he said to her artist, but she was out of line with what she'd said to him. Accusing him of being jealous of her, essentially blaming him, and for what? For being there for her through two months of her intolerable selfishness.

But then again… she was right when she said he undermined her. Maybe sabotage was too strong a word, but to insinuate that Jude wasn't a professional had been wrong, and to say it to her artist had been even worse, no matter how much the flirting grated on his nerves.

He went back and forth between anger and guilt all day. As he left for the day, he stood in the hall for a long time, staring at the door to studio two, and trying to decide whether to, at the very least, go say good night. What eventually made his decision was the sight of Benjamin returning with takeout, saying, "Hey, Harrison. I'm back!" as he walked into the studio, closing the door behind him. Tommy couldn't bring himself to follow Benjamin into the studio, to interrupt them eating Chinese food on the couch the way he and Jude had done so many times. He pulled out his phone instead and texted her, " _Heading home. See you tomorrow"_ and walked out.

.

Jude looked up as Benjamin walked in, saying, "Hey, Harrison. I'm back!"

"Finally. I'm starving." She accepted a container of food from him. "Hey, could you maybe… Not call me that?"

He gave her a confused look. "Call you what?"

"Harrison."

"Um… it's your name." He looked amused.

"Just… Please don't."

"Whatever you say, girl," he laughed.

Jude winced. "Yeah, not that either. Can you just… Stick with Jude, okay?"

"How about 'divine empress of production?'" he teased, raising his eyebrows.

"Whatever." She rolled her eyes. "Forget I said anything." Her phone chimed and she looked down at it. There was a text from Tommy, and her finger hovered over the notification before turning the phone off without replying. "Hey!" she said to Benjamin when she looked up. "Don't eat over the board! Couch!"

"You eat at the board all the time!" he protested with a laugh, but moved back to the couch.

"I do not! Maybe occasionally, if I haven't had lunch, or a few times when I…" The phrase "when I was pregnant" died in her throat, and she shook her head. "Anyway, this is very delicate, expensive equipment." She then opened the container in her hands and pointedly took a bite over the mixer, making Benjamin laugh again.

.

It was around 2 AM when Jude was finally satisfied that they'd recorded everything they needed.

"You're sure?" Benjamin asked in her headphones after she told him he was done.

"Pretty much. I still have work to do, but we have all the raw material."

"Can I listen?"

"Yeah, sure. Come out here." He sat next to her at the computer, and she hit play.

 _'Cause all of these things you were going to do  
Well I'm going to lay them in line for you  
And your old drums lying in your room  
Well I'm going to beat them in time for you_

The song was good, Jude thought again as they listened. He'd wanted to go with a love song, but this song, about his older brother, had captured Jude's attention and wouldn't let it go. He'd argued that the other song would sell better, that people love love, and Jude had replied that the emotion in this song was more real. Even though it was emotional, it was still catchy enough to get attention on the radio, and the version he'd posted on YouTube a year ago was approaching a million views. She'd finally been able to convince him by having him record the basic vocal and guitar tracks for both songs, and then talking him through what she was thinking for other instrumentals.

As the last note finished, Benjamin was nodding. "Okay, Jude. All residual doubt about the choice of single is gone. I now trust you completely and totally."

"The drums make it, right?"

"And that second guitar part."

"Say it…" Jude teased.

"You were right." He smiled.

"Aha! That's what I like to hear." She grinned. "But it's not just me. Your idea about the simpler bridge was really good. One chord per measure, the emotional effect is stunning. It's not finished yet, but it's sounding good."

"Agreed."

"So you can go home now. I shouldn't need you for anything else. Everything else is me, and then mastering by the end of next week. I could probably go home, too, actually, I should have time for this later, but I'm kind of on a roll." She didn't add that she didn't want to go home to Tommy.

"I'd love to watch you work, actually. I'd like to learn, even if it's just by observation. I haven't really used pro tools."

Jude thought of times when she was younger, back at G Major, when she'd spent hours in the studio with Tommy even after he'd told her she could go home. She'd pretend to do homework while really just watching him work. Sometimes she would watch the screen, trying to pinpoint exactly what he was doing, but more often than not, she'd watch him, taking in every detail of his look of concentration as he listened to the same section again and again, his fingers making minuscule changes on the mixer, his little smile when he finally got it right. Every once in a while he'd catch her staring at him, but after a while she couldn't bring herself to be embarrassed when their eyes met. In those days her crush on Tommy had been hopeless enough anyway, but she sometimes thought that watching him work was when she'd truly fallen in love with him.

"Jude?" Benjamin asked when she didn't respond.

"Hmm? Oh. Sure, yeah, if you want to stay. Sometimes it's better to have a second pair of ears anyway, in the middle of the night especially." She turned to the computer again and went immediately to the second chorus, where something was making the vocal track sound strange. She worked for most of the next hour in near-silence, almost successfully ignoring Benjamin's eyes on her. (Not just on the computer. She checked. His eyes were on _her_ more often than they should have been.) After playing the song all the way through for about the twentieth time, Jude sat back and rubbed her eyes. "See, the challenge is to do _that_ , work with that amount of focus, listen to the song that many times, and still be able to step back and hear it the way someone would when hearing it for the first time."

"To hear every note and still hear the song," Benjamin mused.

"Exactly." She yawned and stretched. "and for that to happen I need to take a break."

"Want coffee?"

Jude shook her head. "No more coffee. I've had like nine cups tonight. Even I draw the line at some point." She turned to him and whispered conspiratorially. "I saw a bottle of something in the fridge." She was kidding, not actually intending to steal and drink someone else's alcohol.

Benjamin laughed. "It's champagne. That's mine."

"Oh," Jude said, surprised. "Why do you have champagne in the fridge at the studio?"

He shrugged one shoulder. "Saving it for when we like, officially wrapped the single or whatever."

"Oh. Well, in that case, never mind."

"Well… we could still drink it."

"We're not _done_ though," Jude laughed.

 _"I'm_ done. You said so yourself. Nothing left to record for the single."

"You should save your celebration for when Nora says it's done, trust me. She could send us back to square one in a heartbeat."

"Then promise to bring a bottle when she approves it. You're the producer, it seems fair _you'd_ be the one congratulating _me_ anyway." He raised his eyebrows at her. "How 'bout it?"

"Alright, okay, you convinced me." She grinned.

He went and grabbed the bottle, returning with plastic cups.

"Classy," Jude remarked.

"You know me," Benjamin joked as he poured.

"Cheers," Jude said, raising the cup before downing half.

"I sort of thought you didn't drink," he mused.

"Hmm? Why?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. A lot of people go out or party around here. I've been to a few. You don't seem to go."

"Not anymore," Jude said quietly.

"Oh." His look was sympathetic. "Right. Sorry."

She nodded slowly. "It's partly that, yeah. It's hard to feel like partying a lot of the time. But also, Tom doesn't drink anymore." It felt strange to bring Tommy up, and Jude couldn't quite pinpoint why. "And I'm being supportive." She mumbled the last part into her cup before finishing the rest. Somewhere in her mind she thought that this was validating everything Tommy had said about her blurring the lines between personal and professional, but she pushed the thought away and filled her cup again.

* * *

 **A/N:** The song is "Beat In Time" by a band called Red Kites. Check out Red Kites on YouTube! (/user/RedKitesMusic) They're a great group, friends of a friend of mine, and imo they deserve more fans. I specifically recommend the song "Hold Fast" in addition to this one.


	11. Chapter 11

A couple refills later, Jude found herself feeling the effects of the champagne. She was a little surprised, since she generally had a pretty good tolerance for alcohol. Maybe it was because, between pregnancy and breastfeeding and Tommy's sobriety, she hadn't really been drinking much at all for the past year, but she was definitely tipsy now even though she hadn't had that much. "Okay, yeah, we need to put that away now," she said, handing the bottle to Benjamin. "If I drink much more, I will be drunk, and drunk producing is probably not the best idea in the world."

"I'm sure you'd still be brilliant." His voice had dropped, becoming huskier, or maybe she was imagining it? Either way, it was having a strange effect on her. He was an attractive guy, and she'd always known that, but somehow she hadn't recognized just _how_ good looking he was until now, with his clear blue eyes and his long, long lashes, standing out against the smooth, light brown of his skin. She wasn't prepared for the feeling of desire that welled up in her under his strangely intense gaze.

"You think?" she laughed, a little breathlessly. "I'm not too sure about that."

"You're amazing," he said, softly. His face was very close to hers, and she could feel his breath fan out across her face, smell mint and champagne. His lips looked soft. She bit her lip.

"Benjamin…" she said carefully. It was a warning, to him and to herself.

"I mean it," he said. And he did. She could see in his face that he meant every word. His startlingly blue eyes were wide in some kind of wonder. "You're incredible, Jude Harrison. You're talented, and beautiful, and strong. Watching you work, it was magic." Her pulse quickened, her breath catching in her throat. He was far too close now. She should pull away… "Jude," he whispered her name again. "I know I shouldn't, but all I can think about is kissing you."

"Benjamin, I…" she breathed, trying frantically to think clearly, but her head was spinning from champagne, and more than that, from the closeness of him. _Pull away, Jude._

And then his lips were on hers. She needed to stop him, she needed to pull away, but her lips parted under his, and his hands were in her hair, and then it felt too good to stop. It had been ages since anyone other than Tommy had kissed her like this, and, honestly, it seemed like ages since Tommy had. She hadn't realized how _numb_ she'd felt for the last few months. When she kissed Tommy these days, the emotions there were complex. She loved him, and she was still attracted to him, but he was also her dead daughter's father, and Jude found herself unable to separate the two for long when she was with him, finding herself overcome with grief before she could lose herself in him.

As Benjamin kissed her, she felt guilt at this betrayal of her relationship, but she did not feel grief. For what was maybe the first time in months, she didn't think of her daughter. When he slipped a hand under her shirt, she didn't stop him. She wanted to feel his skin on hers.

 _I am going straight to hell,_ she thought dimly as he climbed on top of her, pressing her into the couch. She didn't stop him as he got undressed, kissing her neck, her collarbone. She didn't stop him when he unhooked and removed her bra, flicking his tongue across one of her nipples, making her gasp. When he produced a condom from his wallet and looked at her, questioningly, she found herself nodding, giving him permission to place the final nail in the coffin of her fidelity.

It wasn't until he was inside her that the tears came, and with them she came to her senses, everything in her suddenly screaming "no". She froze, going completely still underneath him. "Stop," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "Stop, Benjamin, please," she said, louder. "Stop, stop! I can't."

He stopped, looking at her in confusion. "What?"

"I can't do this," she said with a sob, pushing at his shoulders. "I can't. Get– you need to get off me. Please, I can't do this."

He did as she asked and got off of her. "Jude… Why…" He looked a little angry, but mostly just confused and hurt.

As soon as his weight left her, she rolled off the couch, grabbing her underwear and pulling it on, frantically searching for her bra and trying to hook it again, pointedly not looking at Benjamin as tears blurred her vision. She dressed in a panic. "Jude! Jude, wait." Benjamin kept saying her name, trying to get her to look at him, but he didn't try to physically stop her, for which she was grateful. When she was fully dressed, if disheveled, she looked back at him, putting a hand out and saying "No, I'm sorry. This was a mistake. I can't." She practically ran from the room, not realizing until she was halfway down the hall that she was still barefoot, her shoes having been kicked off well before the kissing had started. Even though the place seemed deserted, she knew Benjamin wouldn't follow her before getting re-dressed himself.

She took refuge in the women's bathroom, fixing her clothes and staring at her wide, teary eyes in the mirror. She noticed with a surge of guilt and disgust that her lipstick was smeared. She turned on the sink and splashed water on her face, trying to rub it off. A red spot on her neck made her gasp in horror before she realized it wasn't a hickey, just more lipstick.

It had happened so fast, one second he was leaning in and the next… A minute, maybe two, and she'd made the worst mistake possible. He had kissed her, and that was all it had taken for her to betray the most important person in her life. Seven years of loving Tommy and all it had taken…

When her skin was red from scrubbing it hard with a paper towel, but clean of any trace of what she'd done, Jude braced herself to go back to the studio, to get her shoes at the very least. She was relieved when she opened the door and found the room empty. She slipped her shoes back on and sat down at the computer, putting her head in her hands.

"Jude!" came a voice from the doorway. Benjamin.

She groaned without turning. "Please go away." She felt his hands on her back, trying to turn her to look at him, and her stomach turned at the contact. She turned to him, if only to get him to stop touching her. "I can't do this, Benjamin. Do you understand?"

He sat down in the other chair, looking at her pleadingly. "No, Jude. Please."

"That?" She pointed to the couch. "That never happened. Do you hear me?"

"No!" he protested. "No way am I going to let you pretend that that didn't mean anything."

"It didn't!" she cried. "It was a stupid, stupid mistake, and that's it," she said firmly.

"I think I'm falling in love with you." His voice was soft.

Jude's stomach plummeted. "No you are _not,_ " she said emphatically. "Don't you _dare_ confuse this with love."

"I think you're amazing," he said, in the same husky tone as before, but this time it just made her feel sick.

"I don't care!" she practically shouted. "I am _with someone_ , Benjamin. I love him! We had a baby together!"

"Relationships end."

"Not mine!" Jude cried. "Not this one!" Tears sprang to her eyes. "You don't understand. You've known me for what? Just over a week? I have been in love with Tommy for almost seven years. We've been through hell and back, more than once. You cannot understand what we have. It's been really hard lately, and I messed up tonight. I seriously, seriously messed up. But I will _never_ throw away what I have with Tommy."

"You think he'll forgive you, if he finds out?" Benjamin asked in a tight voice.

"I… I don't know." Jude felt panic in her chest at the thought. "I will fight like hell to make sure he does. But even if he doesn't, you and I will never happen."

"You wanted me to kiss you," he protested weakly. "You did. You wanted that. All of it."

"I made a mistake," she said again, firmly. "I'm not saying it's all your fault. It's mine too. But that's what it was. A mistake. One that will never _ever_ happen again".

"Jude…" He was looking at her with a forlorn expression and she couldn't take it anymore.

She sighed. "Can you just… get out, please? Please go home."

"No! What about the song? The album? My music?"

She nodded. "Your part in the single is done. I'll finish it, like we were already planning, and then I'll go to Nora and tell her that you and I can't work together anymore. She'll find someone else to do your album, and your career will be fine."

"You're going to throw this away?" he asked, gesturing between them. "We have something, Jude. Even if it's just musical chemistry, we have something, and you can't throw that away!"

"You crossed a line, and you can't un-cross it!" Jude shouted. Benjamin looked like she'd slapped him. He opened his mouth to protest, but Jude cut him off before he could. "Okay, okay, _we_ crossed a line. We did. Both of us. But the point stands. You just told me you love me, and because of that, I cannot work with you ever again. For both our sakes. We may have had musical chemistry, we may have had a good professional relationship, but we don't anymore. That went up in smoke the second you decided to kiss me, and I let you. Do not come in tomorrow. After this single, I am not your producer."

Benjamin looked at her, betrayed, for a long moment. "Fuck you," he said quietly. "Seriously? Fuck you, Jude. You and that asshole deserve each other." He slammed his hand down on the edge of the board, making her jump, then pushed himself up out of the chair.

"Wait," she said, when he was at the door. He turned around, and she turned in the chair to face him. "I'm sorry. I really am so, so sorry. If I led you on, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm leaving you as producer. _I'm sorry_. Okay?"

He frowned at her for a moment, but then nodded. "Okay."

"Look, you… you can't tell anyone about this. Please. Please. I know you're angry at me, and you have a right to be, but please don't tell anyone about this. If it gets to the tabloids…" She squeezed her eyes shut at the thought. "Just… please. You can't."

"What sort of person do you think I am?" He was still frowning, but his expression was strangely unreadable.

She was a little taken aback, not knowing quite how to answer. "I think… you're a good guy. I think you're kind, and immensely talented, and I think you're really going places in your career. But I also think you're very ambitious, and that you're hurt, and in this industry I've seen people do worse for less."

He raised one eyebrow. "It would get my name out there."

Jude sighed, fighting back tears. "It would. I suppose that's one way to break into the public eye. It would get your name known." She shook her head. "Your _name_ , Benjamin. Not your music. If what you're after is fame, you can use me to get that, if you want to. I probably won't be able to stop you. But being a guy who slept with Jude Harrison won't get people to take your music seriously."

"It might get them to listen."

"Maybe a few people will buy the single because of it. It'll get you interviews, maybe get your music airtime if you're very lucky. And because I'm the woman, I'll be the one they blame, the one they call a whore. But they'll think of you as a womanizer, and that's a label you won't escape. I've watched Tommy try to get rid of it for years now so people will take him seriously, and it's not even how he was first discovered. Right now, you have an audience that connects to you as a person, and connects to your music. Almost all of them just want to support you. Do you know how rare that is? If you try to throw me under the bus and ride this story to fame, I promise you that you'll alienate them. People might know your name, but they won't think of you as a serious musician. They won't respect you."

"Wait, are you giving me career advice?" he asked, sarcastically. "I thought you weren't my producer anymore."

"I think you know that I'm right, Benjamin," she said, fighting to continue sounding calm. "When we first met and I asked if you were in it for the fame, you said 'I just want people to hear my music.' Let me put it this way. With this story you can be Kim Kardashian, but you cannot be Bob Dylan. Please just keep that in mind, even if you don't care about me and my career, or the fact that I am literally begging you not to tell anyone. Please."

"Fine!" he snapped. "I'll keep my mouth shut. I wasn't planning to tell anyone anyway. Happy?"

"No," she sighed. "Not happy. I'm… I'm so sorry."

"You mentioned that." He rolled his eyes and turned away again.

"I will do this single justice, Benjamin," she said as he left. "That I promise you. It's a great song, and it's going to kill. Okay?" He didn't respond, just walked back out through the empty building.

She tried to listen to the song again, to continue working on it, but the sound of his voice made her feel sick, and her head was spinning. Instead, she saved the files, reset the board, and then straightened up the studio, throwing away their containers from dinner and the half-empty bottle of champagne. She hid the condom and its wrapper inside other trash, and she thought she might actually be sick at the way the guilt felt like dirt coating every inch of skin Benjamin had touched. After washing her hands, arms and face four or five times, the most she could do without a shower, she went back to the studio and lay down on the couch, too exhausted to let the thought of what had happened there overcome how comfortable it looked.

At around 4:30, Jude fell into a fitful sleep.

* * *

 **A/N:** This was not the plan. It wasn't until I was writing the chapter that's two before this one that I figured out what was going to happen here. (That's actually _after_ I introduced Benjamin as a character, it wasn't my original intention to have him play this role.) I actually sent a message to my friend Chloe that said "oh no oh no oh no Chloe, I think Jude is going to cheat". I was very upset about it, but it suddenly felt to me like where the story needed to go. That's something that happened a lot with this story, the plot dragging me in directions I hadn't planned to go.

I break my own heart every time I read this chapter, especially because I know what's coming next, so **I wrote an alternate ending** to chapter 10 to make myself feel better. When I post the next chapter, I'll post that alternate as a chapter of my "Happy Birthday Extras" story, to help you guys feel better too.

…But then you have to go back to feeling sad because that alternate is not canon, and this story doesn't get happy any time soon. Sorry. (Not that sorry)

P.S. Please don't hate me, and please be kind in your reviews. I know Jude just made a huge mistake, and she'll pay for that mistake subsequently in this story, I promise, but please try to consider the circumstances. Some people seem to see red at the very mention of infidelity, and that's understandable, but do please _try_ to be kind. Occasionally the Jude hate on things I've written has been somewhat violent, and I tend to take it very personally. You are ALWAYS welcome and encouraged to express your opinions on the things I write, but please try to at least do it in a way that doesn't involve calling anyone names. Thank you. And thank you again for reading.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N:** Because the ones surrounding it are long, this chapter is very short, so I'm posting it now.

* * *

Jude woke to a hand stroking her hair. She groaned. Every muscle in her body ached, and despite how uncomfortable the couch had become, all she wanted at first was to stay asleep. A familiar voice said her name softly, and she finally opened her eyes. "Morning, sunshine," Tommy teased gently.

"Tommy?" She groaned again. "What time is it?"

"It's about 8:30," he said as she sat up.

"In the AM?" Jude asked incredulously. She tried to stretch, but found her neck and shoulders painfully knotted. "Ow!" she cried. "Oh, fuck. Ow, ow, ow, my neck!" She put a hand up to her neck and tried desperately to work out the knot in her muscles that was making it impossible to turn her head.

Tommy laughed. "Come here." He sat next to her on the couch and she turned her back to him so he could rub her shoulders.

"So you woke up at 8 AM to– Oh." She cut off as Tommy's thumbs dug into the tense muscles of her shoulders. "Oh my _God,_ " Jude moaned involuntarily. Tommy chuckled. She tried again after a minute. "You got up to drive down here and give me– no no no, right there, right there, yesss, thank you– a neck rub?" She let out a final sigh of contentment as Tommy kissed her hair and then removed his hands. "A _killer_ neck rub, thank you. Oh God that's so much better." She tilted her head back and forth a few times and rolled her shoulders.

"Don't sleep on couches," he teased. "But my goal was more to wake you up than specifically to rub your shoulders. I brought coffee, too." He picked up the cups he'd set down and handed one to her.

"You, Quincy, are a god among men," Jude said, accepting the cup gratefully.

"Tell me something I don't know," he said with a smile, taking a sip of his own coffee.

"But seriously." She turned to face him. "You woke up at 8 AM just because you thought I'd probably be sleeping in the studio and you wanted to come wake me up?"

"There's someone in here at 9." He shrugged.

"You could pretty easily have left me to be woken up when they came in…" She was trying desperately not to think about what had happened last night, what she'd done.

Tommy nodded and sighed, putting the coffee down. "I suppose I really came to apologize."

"Apologize?" Jude asked, surprised. She was so consumed with her own guilt that she nearly forgot about the fight.

"I couldn't sleep, thinking about that fight, the things we said…" He reached out and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "Jude, I'm sorry."

"No," she said quietly, feeling tears threatening. "No, I'm sorry."

"You were right, about what I said to Benjamin," he said. At the sound of his name, the tears started to fill her eyes. "I undermined you with your artist, and it wasn't okay. It won't happen again. I think maybe you were right about me being jealous. Partly of him, but mostly of the fact that… Not that you're happy, just that… I don't know. Maybe that you don't need me? Maybe that I'm having a rougher time than you are getting back to producing? Either way, It was out of line, and I'm so sorry. And I'm sorry I called you selfish. I didn't mean it, I was just angry."

Jude couldn't fight the tears anymore. "I am selfish," she whispered. "I'm selfish, and I'm unprofessional, and everything you said, I am. I'm the one who's sorry." She threw her arms around his neck and let out a sob.

"Whoa, Jude!" Tommy said, surprised. "What do you mean?" He pushed her away, gently, holding her at arm length, putting his hands on her tear-covered cheeks. "What do you mean you're unprofessional? You're one of the most professional musicians and producers I have ever worked with." To his dismay, this only made her cry harder. "And you're not selfish. Grief makes people isolate themselves. I did it too. You weren't being selfish, you're just grieving, and I should never have been so hard on you for that." When Jude's tears didn't stop, Tommy finally asked, "What's wrong? Is there something else going on?"

"No, no, sorry." Jude sniffled, trying to contain her crying.

"Are you sure?" Tommy looked so concerned, and it made Jude want to cry even harder.

"No." She ran her hands through her hair and drew in a shaky breath. "I mean, yes, I'm sure, no, nothing else is going on," she lied. "I think I'm just… Really really tired. I was working until like 5."

"And Benjamin went home?"

Jude had her hysteria almost under control now, and sound of his name didn't send her back into tears this time. She took another deep breath. "Some time after 3 in the morning. He was done recording before that, but he wanted to watch me work for a while. He was driving me crazy so I finally made him go home." Telling the half-lie made her feel like she was going to be sick. "He's not coming in today either."

"Having your artist looking over your shoulder while you're trying to work? Must be incredibly annoying, I can't imagine," he teased. She smiled weakly at the joke. "Did you finish the song?"

Jude shook her head. "I kind of… hit a wall."

He smiled. "You're in the 'I can't listen to this goddamn song one more time' phase?"

"Something like that." She sighed.

"Do you want me to take a look?" He quickly added, "Not that you need rescuing, or anything, just that you might benefit from an extra set of ears."

She hesitated briefly, but then nodded. "I think that would help, yeah. I just… If I hear his voice again I might scream."

"Harsh," Tommy laughed.

"I'm probably exaggerating."

"Well, anyway, yeah. No shame in needing another set of ears. That's what Kwest used to be for me back in the day. Another person to bring a different perspective when you feel like you're drowning in it. Help pull you back, see the whole song and not just each note, you know?"

That caught her off guard. Tommy noticed her expression and looked at her questioningly. "That's something Benjamin said," she explained. "Last night. About seeing the whole song and all of the notes at the same time."

"Great minds, I guess," Tommy said, with only mild sarcasm. "Do you want me to listen now?"

"Can we do it later?" she asked with an exhausted sigh.

"Sure," he said, giving her a sympathetic look. "What time are you supposed to come in today?"

"Three," she said through a yawn.

"Okay. I'm in at four, we can both come in at three, and work on it for an hour together?" She nodded, but exhaustion was hitting her like a freight train. Tommy put an arm around her and pulled her against him. "Want me to take you home?" he asked, gently. She looked up at him with her big blue eyes, which still looked very sad for some reason he couldn't seem to figure out, and nodded.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** By the way, I forgot when I posted the last chapter (I think because that posting was off-schedule) to post the alternate ending to chapter 10 that I promised, but I have done that now, it's in the _Happy Birthday Extras_ story of mine. If you haven't seen it, you can check that out.

* * *

Tommy definitely knew something was seriously wrong. Jude knew he must. A year ago he would have been even more concerned at things like her asking in a quiet voice if he would stay with her until she fell asleep, or, when he climbed into bed with her, the way she held tightly to him as if afraid he'd disappear. He surely worried at her tears, too. She'd gotten in the shower as soon as they got home, and he'd followed her in after a few minutes, but she'd been unable to control her crying. He'd wrapped his arms around her from behind, kissed her neck and murmured that he loved her, and she'd begun to sob so hard that he had pulled back in alarm. Before, these things would have been massive red flags. Nowadays, she knew he'd brush some of it off as a bad day, assuming it was about Caroline.

But Tommy knew her, more than anyone else ever had or ever would, and Jude knew he was concerned, that he couldn't shake the feeling there was something else going on. He would figure her out.

She couldn't keep it up forever anyway, she knew. For one thing, the guilt was eating her up. But that was her punishment for betraying him, she told herself. To tell him, to hurt him, just to assuage her own guilt? That was selfish, wasn't it?

But there was another factor, too. Her fitful dreams were filled with Benjamin's angry face, and all day she couldn't shake the worry that his ambition and his anger at her would win out over his common sense.

 _Could I deny it, if he went to the tabloids?_ she wondered later as Tommy played the single and it became impossible to avoid thinking about Benjamin. _Could I convince Tommy?_

 _No,_ she realized, as she watched Tommy concentrating on the song. If it were just a question of convincing the fans and the media, she could probably do that. Benjamin didn't have any proof, and it would be his word against hers. He had a substantial and trusting audience, but it was nothing compared to hers. Her relationship with Tommy was well-established, and, despite the bloodthirsty nature of the media, she suspected that most people wouldn't be _too_ quick to assume she'd throw it away. As long Tommy stood by her, didn't leave, backed her up, it would take little more than a flick of her wrist to discredit a rumor that Benjamin had been anything other than an artist with a crush on her. It would take maybe one press statement, a well-worded tweet, and two weeks for it all to blow over, crushing Benjamin's image into dust in the process.

But to convince Tommy? He would want to believe her if she told him nothing happened, and that _might_ be enough to make him stay, play along with the lie, but deep down she knew he wouldn't believe her, no matter how convincingly she lied. He just knew her too well. _Besides,_ she realized, _you can't even be convincing when he doesn't suspect anything._

If she came clean, if she told him everything, he would be so hurt and so angry, and he might not forgive her. But if he found out from the tabloids, or, God forbid, directly from Benjamin, and he knew she'd been lying to him? That would be even worse.

"Jude!" Tommy was trying to get her attention.

"What? Sorry." She pulled the nail she'd been biting out of her mouth.

He frowned. "I said, do you mind if I try something?"

"Sure. Go for it."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Jude, you need to actually pay attention to this, or there's no point."

"I'm with you," she insisted. "I'm paying attention."

He rolled his eyes. "Sure you are." But he smiled at her as he explained his suggestion.

With effort, she was actually able to put it all out of her mind for a while, at least enough to concentrate on the music.

"It's looking good, Jude," Tommy said after the hour was almost up. "I mean, like, really good. He's talented, which was clear from the stuff he had online, but you've taken it to the next level." He leaned in and smiled at her. "Would it sound condescending if I said I was proud of you?"

She had to laugh at that. "Maybe, but I'm so used to you being condescending I don't know if I'd notice."

"Ouch," Tommy said with a laugh, but then he frowned a little. "Am I condescending?"

Jude shrugged. "Not all the time. But you have this look you get when you're imparting wisdom upon me."

Tommy looked confused. "A look? What look? I don't have a look."

Jude grinned. "You have a look." She imitated the expression, head tilted slightly, a perfect mix of tenderness and condescension. Tommy just continued to look confused, so she started quoting one of his many speeches. "Writing a song, it's like falling in love," she started in a low voice.

"I get the point, Harrison." He rolled his eyes.

"The chords you want are in the guitar," she continued, quoting a different piece of advice he'd once given. "You gotta coax them out."

"Yes, fine, okay, I did say that. It was a long time ago."

"What about your fans? Don't they matter?" She was overdoing the pout, now, and fighting to keep a straight face. Tommy reached for the ticklish spot in Jude's side and she shrieked, pulling away. He continued to tickle her until she grabbed both of his hands and protested, "Okay, okay! I'm done!"

He pulled back, his smile fading. "I see your point. I guess I do have a look. Sorry for being condescending."

Jude rolled her eyes and leaned in, putting her face close to his. "I like your teacher look."

"Yeah?" He smiled.

"Yes." She kissed him. "It's actually pretty hot."

He laughed at that and kissed her again. Without breaking the kiss, she moved on top of him so she was straddling him in his chair. After a minute, he pulled away, shaking his head. "You're killing me, girl. I have to go soon." He sighed. "Duty calls."

"You have…" she looked over her shoulder at the computer monitor "ten minutes at least." But she didn't kiss him again, instead running her fingers through the hair at his temples and looking at him sadly.

"I meant it about the song," Tommy said, his hands on her waist. "It's good. He's good. And if you keep producing tracks like this one, he'll go far. You both will, if you decide you want to stick with producing instead of performing for a while. I know I was an ass about him, about all of this, but I was wrong. I think you make a good team."

Jude's face contorted briefly with pain. "I don't know about that." She ran a hand through her hair. "I don't think it's going to work out. I don't know if he and I can keep working together."

"Wait, what? Why?" He looked suddenly horrified. "Please tell me it's not because of what I said to him."

"No," Jude assured him. "Not really, I just… It's complicated." She felt like she was going to start crying again and shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Jude…"

"Not right now," she said, pleadingly. "We can talk about it later, maybe, but…" She sighed and bent her head down so their faces were close. "Please just kiss me," she whispered. He still looked concerned, but after a moment he did as she asked.

Just after their lips met, they heard the door open. Jude looked up to see Benjamin leaning against the door frame, scowling. "I told you not to come in today," she said angrily.

"And I came in anyway," Benjamin retorted.

"Go away," Jude groaned, and tried to go back to kissing Tommy.

"Jude!" Tommy pushed her away, giving her a "what the hell is wrong with you" look.

She got off of him with a sigh, sitting back in the other chair. "Sorry. Seriously, though, I don't need you today. It's all production stuff from here. Tommy was helping me out." Benjamin's eyebrows shot up and Jude rolled her eyes. "With the song. Another set of ears."

"Right." Benjamin laughed once, a harsh sound. "Looked like you were working hard."

"What do you want, Benjamin?" she snapped. Tommy shot her another look.

Benjamin sighed, un-crossing his arms. "We need to talk."

Rage surged in Jude's veins, hot and sharp. "I really don't think we do need to talk. Possibly not ever again," she hissed before she could stop herself.

"Jude!" Tommy and Benjamin said together. Benjamin looked sad and betrayed, Tommy looked angry.

"What the hell is going on?" Tommy hissed under his breath. Jude just shook her head. He turned to Benjamin. "You know what? I'm actually running late. I'm going to go. You two," he turned back to Jude, "clearly have something you need to deal with."

Jude put her head down on the desk and groaned as Tommy left and closed the door behind him.

"So he has no idea," Benjamin mused, sitting down in the chair Tommy had just vacated.

"What do you want, Benjamin?" she said again, sounding more tired than angry this time.

He ignored her and turned to the computer, pressing play on his song. Jude almost protested, but then figured he had a right to listen to his own single. When it ended, they were both silent for a long moment. "I want that," he said softly, turning to her. "I want you to be my producer. Please, Jude. We're good together. This single, it's better than I've ever sounded."

"I can't," she said, shaking her head. "I just can't, okay?"

His pleading look hardened into a frown. "Then I can't keep my mouth shut."

"What?" she asked, surprised. "Benjamin, are you… trying to blackmail me into producing you?"

He shrugged. "Call it that, if you want. I'd just call it an agreement. If you stay, no one has to know. _He_ never has to find out what happened last night. And I thought about it and…" he sighed "I can see that it may have been a mistake. If you don't want it to, it'll never happen again. We'll be strictly professional. Like it never happened, I promise. That's what you want, isn't it?" He was pleading again, looking at her with wide, sincere eyes.

She considered it. It was, in a sense, what she wanted. For it never to have happened. "And if I say no?"

He frowned. "Then you leave me no choice. I go to the tabloids."

Jude scoffed. "Of course you have a choice."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "You think I'm bluffing?"

"No. I completely believe you're stupid enough to make this horrible career move just to spite me. But you know what?" She looked at him with disgust. "I've worked with a gun to my head before, and I'm never going to do that again. My answer is no."

"Think this through, Jude. Think about Tom."

"Don't you dare talk to me about Tommy!" she shouted.

"You're willing to throw your relationship away?"

Jude squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to calm down. "You really think he wouldn't find out? He's not stupid, Benjamin, and he knows me. He already suspects something. You're going to accuse me of throwing my relationship away? My relationship isn't based on lies." Her decision, the one she had really already made, was cemented as she said it. "Not that it's any of your business, but I'm going to tell him today. I was already planning to. So you and I?" She shook her head. "We will never work together again."

"You're making a mistake!" he shouted.

"I already made my mistake!" she shouted back. "I'm going to own up to it." She stood up and pointed to the door. "Now get the hell out of my studio!"

He stood too, furious. "You'll regret it, Harrison," he spat, turning back to her before he reached the doorway.

She laughed, short and sharp. "So will you. Have fun permanently alienating your audience. Hope it's worth it."

"Fuck you," was his final retort as he slammed the door.

She started to shake as he left, overwhelmed and fearing that she'd made him so angry he'd go screaming it through the halls of Bermondsey. She went to the door and looked surreptitiously into the hallway, but he was nowhere to be seen, having stormed straight out of the building. She stepped back into the quiet studio and sank to the floor, her back against the door, and started to cry.


	14. Chapter 14

Jude sat in the studio and cried for nearly an hour. She considered calling Sadie, but in the end she was too embarrassed to admit to her sister what she'd done. Later, if Benjamin really did go to the tabloids, Sadie might be mad that Jude hadn't told her, but she just couldn't face the conversation right now.

Eventually, Jude pulled herself up off the ground and back to the computer. She listened to the single again and again, making minor changes. When she felt she was as satisfied with the song as she could be, she saved it, exported the file, and e-mailed it to Nora with the message, "Nora, I think Benjamin's single is ready for mastering. Let me know what you think. –Jude"

The clock now read 17:45, and Jude's chest tightened at the thought that in less than an hour, they'd be heading home, where she'd have to tell Tommy what had happened. She'd made the decision to tell him already, but now she had to, before he could find out from Benjamin, directly or indirectly. She no longer had a choice.

 _But first thing's first._ She thought. After resetting the board and turning off the computer, she went to Nora's office and knocked on her door. Her boss looked up and smiled at her through the window, waving her in.

"Good afternoon, Jude," Nora said pleasantly. "Oh, nearly evening now, I suppose," she added as she looked at the clock on her wall. "What do you need?"

"Did you get my e-mail?" Jude asked, sitting in the chair in front of the desk.

"No, I don't think so," Nora said, turning to her computer.

"That's fine. I just sent it a few minutes ago. It's Benjamin's single."

"Oh? Is it finished already? That's nearly three days early. Ah, there it is." She clicked, opening the e-mail.

Jude nodded. "Ready for mastering, unless you say otherwise."

"In that case, I'll listen to it now, if you don't mind."

"Sure," Jude said, but Nora had already opened the attachment. As she played the song, listening closely, Jude felt the familiar nervous energy that came from someone about to pass judgement on her work. Despite her nerves, though, she didn't hear any obvious problems, and there wasn't really anything she would've changed.

"What's the title?" Nora asked after the last note had died down.

"'Beat In Time'," Jude said, biting her lip. "Do you like it?"

"It's…" Nora seemed to be considering. "A bold choice, choosing a song about sibling love instead of romantic love. I assumed it's about a brother, yes? I suppose it could be to a father or a friend or someone else."

"You were right the first time. He had an older brother that died when he was young. Left Benjamin all of his musical instruments."

Nora nodded, tapping her finger on the desk a few times, thinking. "It's good," she said finally. "It's catchy, it's emotional, his voice sounds great." She nodded again. "Well done."

"You think it's ready?" Along with the complex cloud of other emotions, Jude felt a surge of genuine happiness and excitement that her boss approved of the first single she'd produced for another artist.

"I think it'll be a hit." Nora smiled. "It's only the beginning, of course," she added, instantly filling Jude with dread. "I think I may have secured the opener for the second half of Darren Hammond's tour later this summer, although his label is proving tricky. But if you keep producing tracks like this, you two will go far." Her smile was wide, but faded as she noticed Jude's face. "What is it?" she demanded.

"I…" Jude stammered. "I- I don't know. I just… I don't think I can keep working with him. I think this single should be the… the last."

Nora frowned. "I beg your pardon, Jude?" When Jude found herself unable to speak, Nora continued, "I paired you and Benjamin up for a reason. He needs more than just a talented producer to take him to the next level. He needs a mentor to coach him through the industry, and I thought you were perfect to do that. This just proves I was right!" She gestured to the computer. "This single is exactly what I wanted for him, but there's still a long way to go. So what exactly is the problem?"

"I…" Her boss looked very angry, and it scared her. How could she explain this? Without thinking it through, she found herself saying "I want to go back to working on my own stuff."

"Really?" Nora's eyebrows shot up, but she looked pleased, though surprised. "You're ready?"

This wasn't what she had intended to say, and she knew deep down that she was nowhere _near_ ready, but what else could she say now? It was too late to backtrack. She'd dug herself into this hole, there wasn't anything she could do besides keep digging. "I, uh… I think so. I've been writing again, since I started working with Benjamin," she lied.

"Well, then. I said I'd do everything I could to accommodate, as soon as you wanted to work as an artist again, though I confess that from what you said, I didn't think it would be this soon. But in that case, I'd be happy to find another producer for Benjamin. For Fitting Ideal, too, I suppose. I assume you and Tom will want to work together again?" Jude nodded mutely, because she couldn't think of what else to do. "Actually," Nora continued. "If you're making music again, a duet between you and Benjamin would be a terrific idea."

Jude felt sick. How had this backfired so badly? "Oh, I don't know if he'd want to–"

"Nonsense. He adores you, and so does the public. Your music is similar enough that I'm sure you'd have a lot in common as far as audience. He'd be the perfect opening act for a tour of yours." Nora must have noticed that Jude had gone white, because she hastened to clarify. "Not that I'm sending you on another tour any time soon. We'll ease back into it. Start with the duet, then maybe start working on an album. No rush." She smiled, and Jude felt like the ground had dropped from beneath her. Why hadn't she said she just wasn't ready to be back at work at all and hoped Nora would let her take more time off?

Or, better yet, why hadn't she just _told the goddamn truth?_ If Benjamin went to the tabloids, Nora would know anyway, and it would be an issue that PR would need to deal with. If Jude got ahead of it, spun the story to Nora, she could get the majority of Bermondsey's PR efforts on her side. Nora might even be so angry that Benjamin would go to the press that she'd drop him from the label, and she'd almost certainly support them not working together anymore. Instead, Jude had panicked, and said completely and totally the wrong thing. "Actually, Nora, there's something else, with Benjamin," she said, trying to salvage the mess she'd made.

"Can it wait?" Nora asked, looking at the clock. "I have some things I need to finish, and I want to get home at a reasonable time tonight."

"Uh… I guess," Jude said, her heart sinking.

"I'll send that single to a few other members of my board for review, and then it's on to mastering. I guess since you're ahead of schedule, I probably don't need you to come back in for the rest of the week. Some time next week we'll discuss your own music and a duet after we've solidified some of the plans for releasing the single. If there's more you need to discuss, though, you can come in tomorrow. I'm here for most of the day, I think. I have meetings in the morning, but I can see you in the afternoon."

"Yeah, okay. Tomorrow's good."

"I'm very glad you're getting back to your music, Jude." Nora smiled and turned back to her computer, which Jude figured was her cue to leave.

.

She went from Nora's office back to her studio, grabbing her bag. She knew Tommy should be done soon, and she went to the other studio, where he was recording with Chris. He was concentrating and didn't hear her walk in. When Chris finished, Jude gave him a thumbs up through the glass, and he returned the gesture. "Not exactly, Chris," Tommy said. "I mean, it was fine, but I'm going to need more energy than that." Chris said something and pointed to Jude. Tommy turned briefly around and held up his finger in a "wait" gesture to Jude. "Okay, Chris, again. And I'm serious, more energy. One more take. You've got this." Chris nodded and said something. Tommy took off one ear of his headphones, changing the setting so that the song played through the speakers and Jude could hear. He then started the playback, and Chris began to sing.

"Sorry," Jude said quietly, coming up to sit next to Tommy at the board. "Didn't mean to interrupt."

Tommy just shrugged and put the headphones all the way back on. When the song, which was actually starting to sound really good, was over, he pushed the button for the microphone and said. "That is _exactly_ what I was looking for, man. Thank you."

"Is that the last of the vocals?" Chris asked.

Tommy nodded. "I actually think we're done recording, unless I find something else I need." He took his hand off the button and smiled at Jude, removing his headphones. "See? Not too far behind you."

"I sent the final mix to Nora today," she murmured, not returning his smile.

Tommy raised his eyebrows at her, then said in the mic, "Okay, Chris, that's it for today."

"So I can head out, then?" Chris asked.

"Yeah." Tommy turned back to Jude as Chris went to the corner of the room to grab his gig bag. "You happy with it?"

"This song?" Jude asked, confused.

"Uh, no, the song you just sent to Nora."

"Oh. Yeah. She listened to it, actually. Gave it her seal of approval too."

His face broke into a wide smile. "Hey, congratulations, girl! You've finished production on your first single for another artist!" He frowned when she continued to look stricken. "Why aren't you happy about this?"

"I am," she insisted.

Tommy looked skeptical. "You look like you're going to be sick."

 _That is a definite possibility._ Jude thought. "Uh… I may have told Nora that I was ready to go back to my own music."

Tommy's eyes widened, but Chris came out of the booth, and Jude gave a small shake of her head that told Tommy not to say anything in front of him. "Hey." Chris smiled at her, putting a hand on the back of her chair. "It's great to see you. What did you think?"

"Of the song? It's starting to sound really good. Different than what I expected from you, but good."

"What, would you have pegged me for the soulful acoustic type?" He grinned.

Jude actually laughed at that. "Not exactly. Your riffs kill, and they always have. But the screaming I didn't expect."

"Well, I don't scream, that's mainly Derek. And, in his words, 'it's more of a guttural roar.'" Jude snorted and Chris grinned. "But yeah. I'd love to hear if you have any suggestions."

"We actually have to get going," Tommy said quickly. "But since Jude's ahead on her own schedule, I might bring her in later and see what she thinks."

"Can't wait." Chris bent down to give her a one-armed hug. "We miss making music with you, Jude. Max and Aaron and me," he said, straightening back up and slinging his gig bag over his shoulder. "But I'm glad you're here, at least, even if you're not singing."

"Yeah. I miss you guys too. It's just been hard. We'll do it again some day." Tommy raised his eyebrows and she shot him a look.

"I hope so." Chris smiled. "Well, see you later, Jude. Tom."

"Bye, Chris," Jude said as he walked out.

"You told Nora _what?"_ Tommy said as soon as Chris was gone.

Jude sighed. "I don't know. I just kind of panicked."

 _"Are_ you ready? Because if you are, I'll support you 100% but I didn't think–"

"I don't know, okay?" Jude cried. "I don't know if I'm ready. I haven't written anything new, I just… I don't know."

"Then why the hell would you say you are?"

"Because I can't work with Benjamin anymore, and when Nora asked me why, I panicked."

"Okay, seriously, why can't you work with him?!" Tommy cried.

"He isn't who I thought he was." Jude's explanation was flimsy, if not exactly a lie.

"Yesterday you loved working with him, today you can't do it anymore? For fuck's sake, Jude, you need to tell me _why!"_

"Yesterday he wasn't trying to blackmail me, today he is!" she blurted out without thinking.

"He's _what?"_ Tommy looked incredulous. "What the hell could he possibly be holding over you?" She saw the wheels turning in his head, saw him almost put it together. She considered lying, spinning it, the way she should have done with Nora. Tell him Benjamin had kissed her, that she'd rejected him, and now he was threatening to lie to the tabloids and say that they slept together… She considered painting herself as the victim, hoping he'd believe her.

But she couldn't do that. She had made a promise not to lie to him. "Not here, Tommy," she said finally. "Please, _please_ not here. I will tell you everything, I just want to go home and eat something and take a shower, and try to clear my head, okay? Then I promise I will tell you everything."

"Jude!" he protested, but she looked at him pleadingly and eventually he sighed. "Fine. But are you… is everything okay?"

 _Not remotely._ Jude thought, but she nodded. "I'm fine. We just.. we need to talk about something."

"Something he knows that I don't?" he couldn't help but ask.

"Not. Here." she said firmly.

"I swear to _God_ , Harrison!" Tommy cried, but Jude looked like she was going to cry, and he backed off immediately, pulling her into his arms. "Sorry, sorry."

Jude couldn't take the guilt, knowing he was comforting her over what she'd done, so she pulled away. "Can we please just go home?" she asked quietly. He sighed heavily, but nodded.

* * *

 **A/N:** That 'guttural roar' comment attributed to Derek is pretty much a direct quote from this sort of ex of mine who was THE MOST pretentious, and also happened to be really into metal… There's no reason you need to know that, the character of Derek isn't even based on him or anything, but I laugh every time I read that scene because of it. "It's really not _screaming_ , it's more of a guttural roar" like HA wow shut up Jake. (I'm not trying to hate on metal artists or fans here, that kind of screaming does genuinely take skill, but it always reminds me of 15 year old me and my very questionable taste in guys.) (This concludes my oversharing, I apologize.)


	15. Chapter 15

"Jude!" Tommy grabbed her arm when they were home and Jude tried to head back to their bedroom.

"Shower!" she protested.

"No way." He shook his head, pointing to the kitchen table. "Sit. You need to tell me everything. Now."

All she was doing was prolonging the inevitable, she knew, so she did as he asked, and sat in her chair at the table. Tommy sat across from her, looking at her expectantly, but she couldn't bring herself to say it. "I…" was all she got out, not knowing how to say this. "I love you, okay?" she said after a moment. "Whatever else, just… Please know how much I love you."

 _"Jude,"_ Tommy protested. When she just bit her lip, he said, "Okay, look. If you don't tell me, I'm going to assume the worst." Jude just hung her head. Tommy let out an exasperated sigh, then asked, "Are you pregnant?"

Jude's head shot up. "What?"

"If you're not ready for another kid, we can talk about it. I mean, I'm not ready. It would feel too much like… replacing her. But at the same time, to lose a child and then… I'm just saying we can talk about it."

"Whoa, Tommy. Slow down. I'm not pregnant."

"Oh." He looked relieved.

"Is that what you thought?"

"I don't know what to think!" he cried. "I told you, if you don't just spit it out already, I'm going to assume the worst."

 _That's not the worst._ Jude thought. "Well, no. Not pregnant."

"Whatever it is, Jude,"

 _Just rip off the bandaid, Jude. Now or never._

"it's okay, we'll get through–"

"I slept with someone else," she blurted out, finally, holding her breath for him to start screaming at her, but he just froze.

Tommy felt like he couldn't breathe, like he'd been punched in the stomach, like something was squeezing the air out of his lungs. He couldn't make her words make sense, couldn't be sure he'd heard her right.

"Please say something," she said after a minute, when he just kept staring at her.

"You…" he said, finally, "what?"

"I'm so sorry, Tommy," she whispered, eyes filling with tears.

His brain started to catch up, slowly accepting that this was really happening. It clicked together in his mind, what he'd really already guessed, deep down. "When?" he asked quietly, because it's all he could bring himself to say.

"Last night." Her lower lip quivered and she bit down on it.

"Benjamin." It wasn't a question. His hands shook.

"It was a mistake," Jude said desperately, the tears escaping her eyes. "I knew it was a mistake, I regretted it as soon as… I stopped it, I… We finished recording, it was the middle of the night… We were drinking, and he kissed me, and I don't know what happened. It was a mistake. I love you. Please."

"Is that supposed to make it okay?" His voice was low, getting angrier by the second as the shock faded.

"Of course not," she insisted with a little sob, eyes wide. "It wasn't okay, I'm just trying to explain–"

"Because you were drunk?" He cut her off. "Because you feel guilty?" His voice was getting louder. "Because you didn't finish?!" He stood, pushing back from the table, shouting now.

Jude flinched. "Tommy, I'm sorry. Please. I lo–"

"Shut the fuck up!" he shouted. "Don't you dare try to tell me you love me! You do _not_ get to say that to me! Not anymore!"

She stood up, too, taking a step around the table, towards him. "You're angry, and I deserve that, but please."

She reached out to him and he took a step backwards, putting his hands up to keep himself from shoving her, doing something he'd regret later. "Don't touch me!" he yelled.

She recoiled, still crying, looking at him desperately. "Tommy, please," she whispered.

"Please what?! You don't get to ask me for anything." He was barely paying attention to what he was saying now. He was just shouting at her in the hopes that it would stop him feeling like his heart was being ripped out of his chest. "You don't think I've had offers, Jude? You don't think I could have slept with someone else? You don't think I've wanted to?" She didn't even try to say anything this time, just squeezed her eyes shut, arms wrapped around herself. She deserved this. "After everything," he continued, "after _everything_ , you go and sleep with your fucking artist?! You are more than unprofessional and selfish, Jude. You are a _child_ and a goddamned whore!"

Something snapped in her at that. Her eyes flew open. "No," she hissed angrily. _"No_. The rest of that may be fair, and I know this is my fault, but you do not get to call me that. Do you know how many guys I've slept with in my life, Tommy?!" she shouted. _"Three._ " She took a step towards him. "I made a mistake, and you cannot imagine how incredibly sorry I am. You have every right to be angry at me, but I know for a fact that you have been _unapologetically_ unfaithful more than once. You think just because you've never cheated on _me_ , you get to be all high and mighty? You do _not_ get to call me a whore!" She was less than a foot away from him now, her finger nearly poking him in the chest.

"You do not want to be in my face right now," he hissed in a low voice. She could see him starting to shake.

She stepped back, putting the table between them again. "You need to believe me when I say I am so sorry," she said quietly, her anger gone and her tears returning. "Hurting you is the last thing I wanted to do."

"We had a baby," he said quietly, eyes down, not looking at her. "I thought… I thought that meant something." He didn't sound as angry anymore, though he was still tensed, his hands clenched into fists.

"It did!" she insisted. "It meant everything."

"I thought we were done with this. I thought we were done hurting each other. How could you…" His eyes flickered to her face and then back down at the floor. "Get out," he said quietly.

"What?"

"Get _out,"_ he said again, louder.

"Tommy, no," she protested. "We need to talk this through or we're never going to work it out."

"Talk this through?" he hissed, looking back at her. "Work it out? I can't even look at you." His look of disgust broke her heart.

"Please don't do this," she whispered.

He looked for a second like he was going to shout at her again, but instead he said, "You know what? You stay. I'll go." He tried to sound calm and cold, but his voice came out strained around the lump in his throat. He turned and headed for the door. He grabbed his jacket from where he'd left it draped over the back of a chair, checking to make sure his wallet and phone were in the pocket.

"Tommy!" Jude cried, following him. He turned when his hand was on the doorknob. His glare made it clear she couldn't stop him from leaving, but the look in his eyes scared her. "Please don't do anything stupid."

His expression flickered between anger and sorrow. "You don't get to tell me what to do," he said finally, opening the door and then slamming it behind him.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N:** to my unsigned reviewer: "not long but heart-wrenching" is a very good description of these next couple of chapters as well.

Thank you very much for your reviews. I was worried about posting this after some of the negativity on _Stay With Me_ , but your reviews have all been so kind and thoughtful and supportive, and I appreciate it so much.

* * *

Jude didn't know what to do. Her mind was racing. How had she messed up so badly? How did they end up here? Just a few months ago it felt like she had everything she ever could have wanted, and now all of it was gone. She ended up curling up on the couch in the living room, eyes closed, fingers wrapped around her phone in case Tommy called, trying desperately to hold on to a memory of when they'd been happy.

In the hospital, after Caroline was born. There had been a complication, the cord wrapped around the baby's neck, so they'd had to stop the delivery after nearly 20 hours and do an emergency C-section. Everything had gone okay after that, but because of sheer exhaustion and blood loss from the surgery, the first time Jude had been able to hold her daughter for real was that afternoon, when Caroline was about 6 hours old. They'd wheeled Jude down to the nursery, and she'd been overwhelmed with excitement and fear and joy. Caroline had started crying when the nurse picked her up to hand her to Jude, who hesitated, saying, "Oh, maybe I shouldn't…" The nurse had laughed. "Babies cry, dear. It's okay. Don't be shy."

She gently placed the baby in Jude's arms, and, though Caroline continued to squirm and wail for a moment, the crying slowly stopped as Jude rocked and bounced her. Tommy crouched next to the wheelchair and put his arm around Jude's shoulders. Caroline had looked up at them, actually seeming to focus her gaze on Jude for a moment, and her eyes were so big and blue it took Jude's breath away. That moment had seemed to stretch on forever, and Jude clung to the memory now, trying to hold onto the feeling of that one moment when everything was perfect.

But, as it did in her recurring nightmares, the memory changed, and she was holding her baby girl in the same hospital. This time Caroline was still, her tiny lips tinged blue. The ceaseless screaming of the previous 48 hours had subsided, and Jude would have given anything she had to hear it again.

Caroline had a cough and a slight fever for a few days, but the doctor assured them that it was just a cold, and that it would improve by the end of the week. When it didn't get better, when her fever spiked and she became inconsolable, refusing to eat, screaming herself hoarse every time they touched her, they brought her to the hospital.

By the time the diagnosis of meningitis came, it was too late. They sat for hours in the hospital, the terror mounting with every minute. Caroline's screaming stopped, but her breathing became shallow and laboured, and her normally bright eyes were dull and glassy. She had a seizure, her arms and legs stiff and twitching, her face contorted in a way that still haunted Jude's nightmares. The grave looks on the doctors' faces, their soft and serious tones, and the frightened expression on the face of a young nurse, were enough to push fear over into panic. When Caroline coded, the alarms on all the monitors beeping wildly, an older nurse forced them from the room as doctors rushed in. Jude had screamed that it was her daughter, that they needed to let her stay with her baby, but the nurse said firmly, "The best thing you can do for her now is let the doctors work," and then Tommy had wrapped his arms around her and held her back.

 _She'll be okay. She'll be okay._ Jude had repeated the words to herself over and over, whispering them under her breath until they lost all meaning. After the longest 30 minutes of her life, when the doctor finally came to talk to them, Jude found herself saying it out loud, before the man could say anything. "She'll be okay?" The doctor instructed them to sit, and they did, too scared to protest.

He took a deep breath and then said, "We did everything we could, but I'm afraid we couldn't resuscitate her. Your daughter is dead. I'm so sorry."

If Jude hadn't been seated, she'd have fallen to the floor. Everything shattered. The ground seemed to have dropped out from under her. Tommy had protested, insisting the doctor was wrong, that he was lying. The doctor shook his head and apologized again, explained something further, but Jude didn't hear a word. She thought maybe she'd started to physically rock back and forth.

When the doctor seemed confident they understood the situation, he said that they could see their daughter, if they wished. They must have looked hopeful, or confused, because the doctor had clarified gently, "the body."

When they'd walked into the hospital room, the same young nurse was unhooking Caroline from the machines, which were all turned off now, their alarms silenced. During the attempted resuscitation, they'd put in a breathing tube, and seeing the nurse pull it out, with no objection from the motionless baby, had been what made Jude start to believe that their daughter was truly gone. Tommy had let out a strangled cry when he'd seen it, but Jude had gone straight to the bed. The nurse was wiping something from the corners of Caroline's mouth, and when she saw Jude, she asked gently if she wanted to hold her. Jude nodded, crying silently, and the nurse, whose own eyes were bright with tears she was holding back, picked Caroline up in the blanket and handed her to Jude.

Caroline was warm—too warm, even, from the fever—but it didn't seem at all like she was just sleeping. Even aside from the blue lips, she was just too limp and too silent. Her eyes were shut, but her little mouth hung open. Jude felt her knees start to give out, and the nurse saw it and helped her to a chair.

Jude wasn't sure how long she had sat there holding Caroline's body, but it seemed like forever. Tommy had come over to sit in the chair next to her, putting his arm around her shoulders and his hand on the baby's head, and she'd leaned into him, clung to him as if he was the only thing holding her up.

Even then, in the worst moment of her life, when everything was crashing and falling apart around her, at least she'd had Tommy. Now she'd messed that up, and he was gone too. How could she possibly have been so stupid? How could she have risked her relationship with him? How could she have destroyed the thing that mattered most?

Jude let herself lay there and wallow in grief and self-pity for another hour before forcing herself to get up. She went to the kitchen, made herself a cup of tea, and even forced down some food. She tried to put everything—Tommy, Caroline, Benjamin, Nora, everything—out of her mind. Another hour later, she was actually starting to feel relatively okay, or at least not on the verge of crying at any moment, when her phone rang. She recognized the ringtone instantly. "Tommy!" she exclaimed as she answered.

"Is this Jude?" a male voice with an English accent asked. There was a lot of noise in the background.

"Wait… Who is this?"

"You're Jude Harrison, right? Tom Quincy's girlfriend?" He was speaking quickly, sounding nervous.

She thought for a second that maybe a fan had stolen Tommy's cell phone, and snapped, "Who the hell is this? Why do you have this phone?"

"This is Adam. I'm a friend of Tom's. Is this Jude Harrison?" Actually, she thought, he didn't sound nervous so much as frantic, speaking with an increasing sense of urgency.

"Why haven't I ever heard of you?" Jude said suspiciously.

"I'm going to assume this is Jude, or you'd have corrected me by now." Adam sighed heavily. "I'm his AA sponsor, alright? And I wouldn't be calling you if it wasn't important, but Jude, you need to get to St. Anthony's hospital right away. There's been an accident."

* * *

 **A/N:** Okay, so remember when I said this story was sad? I warned y'all. "I put these characters through hell" was not an understatement. I'm so sorry.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N:** little surprise update for you, since this chapter is so short.

* * *

Tommy hadn't left with the intention to drink. He hadn't known where to go, just that he wanted out, away from Jude. For a while he just walked, even though it was starting to rain. The last time he'd stormed out like this, he'd gone to the airport, run away to the other side of the ocean. But this time was different. Then, he'd been so consumed with self-loathing, with fear that he was no better than his mother, that he'd managed to convince himself that running away was best for Jude.

Now he just felt betrayed. He tried to hold on to being angry at Jude, because that hurt less than facing the feeling that he might have done something to cause this. But she was right: he didn't exactly have an excellent track record as far as fidelity, and it was sort of hypocritical of him to be so furious. What he couldn't help, though, was how hurt he felt, and he felt that pain more and more acutely as the anger started to fade a little.

If someone had told him someone in their relationship would cheat, even he would have been sure it would be him. After all, he'd cheated on his wife multiple times. He'd been unfaithful in nearly every one of the handful of relationships he'd had that were serious enough to be exclusive, even when he was with Angie, who herself had been his mistress. Although he had not technically slept with anyone else while dating Sadie, he'd come close more than once, much closer than was right, and if he thought about it, it would probably only have been a matter of time.

But with Jude it was different. With Jude he'd been sure. Not only had he never cheated on her, he'd never _wanted_ to. He still flirted with other women, and there had been temptations, of course, over the years, but never anything major. No matter how big a fight they got in, no matter that they practically hadn't had sex in months, no matter how attractive and persistent the other woman in question, Tommy honestly didn't think he could to that to Jude. She was all he wanted for the rest of his life. Five years ago that would have scared the shit out of him, but now it seemed right. He would never love anyone else the way he loved her. He must have just taken for granted that she felt the same way, but in the end all it had taken for Jude to cheat was a fight, a late night with an attractive artist, and a couple of drinks.

He kept walking, and found himself in front of a pub he'd been known to frequent in another time. He had honestly not left the apartment with the intention to drink, but now it was all he wanted to do. All of the times since Caroline died that he'd wanted to drink to make the pain stop, he'd been able to tell himself that at least he had Jude. When he didn't feel strong enough to stay sober for himself, he stayed sober for her. And now…

He mentally ran through the list he'd made and memorized a month ago of things he should do instead when he felt the urge to drink. Go to the gym, play the piano, take a walk, talk to Jude. He stopped, sucking in a breath. Why should he even bother to keep trying? Without Jude, he had nothing, and she had thrown their relationship away, like he didn't even matter. What was the point? Why shouldn't he just give in and drink until he didn't feel like she'd ripped his heart out?

And that was how Tommy found himself at the bar requesting, "Scotch, neat. Make it a double," like it was still second nature.

.

When Tommy requested his fourth refill, the bartender nodded, but said, "I'll need your car keys, though. Policy."

"Don't have any," Tommy said honestly. "Didn't drive." The man looked skeptical, so Tommy said, "No, really." He put his jacket up on the bar and turned the pockets inside out. What came out was his wallet, his phone, a pack of gum, and the yellow chip that signified two months of sobriety. Tommy could tell that the bartender knew what it was when his expression changed slightly, but he didn't say anything about it, just said, "Comin' right up," and went to pour the drink.

Tommy turned the chip over and over in his fingers and found himself laughing. "I guess I don't need this anymore," he said when the bartender served him the drink.

"Tomorrow's a new day, mate." The man shrugged, and gave Tommy a pitying look before walking away to serve other customers. Tommy's heart sank as he looked at the coin, and after a minute he picked up his phone.

"Hello?" Adam answered after the third ring.

"She cheated on me," was all Tommy could think to say.

"What?" He sounded shocked.

"Jude, man. She slept with her artist and I don't know what to do."

"Where are you?" he asked. Tommy reluctantly named the pub, expecting a reprimand, or at least a sigh of disappointment, but Adam just asked, "Are you drinking?" There was no condemnation in the question, just a matter-of-fact request for information. He could have been asking about the weather.

"Yeah."

"Drunk?"

Tommy sighed and took another swallow of the whiskey. "Yeah."

"Okay. I'll be there in fifteen."

"I can't go home." Tommy felt like maybe he would start crying, and the feeling pissed him off.

"Alright, well, if you really need a place to stay for the night, you can stay with me. The girls are staying with a friend tonight anyway, and Cecile's away on business."

"I don't want to put you out, man. I can get a hotel room."

"We'll talk about it. I'm getting in the car now. I'll be there in fifteen minutes, alright?"

"I'm sorry," Tommy found himself saying.

"It happens. I understand, believe me," he said. "You don't need to apologize to me. I'm hanging up now to drive, but I'll be there soon."

"Okay."

"Okay." Adam hung up, and Tommy debated ordering another drink, since it wasn't like he could break his sobriety again before he was sober. Go big or go home, right? But in the end, he knew that was the wrong way to think about it, so he didn't get more, just finished the drink he had already ordered. By the time he paid for the drinks, it had been 15 minutes, and Tommy decided to just meet Adam outside, to spare them both the indignity. It was really pouring rain now, and it took him a moment to recognize the man waving at him from across the road.

Tommy was looking down at the sobriety chip in his hand as he stepped out into the street, and he didn't see the car until it was too late.


	18. Chapter 18

Between the rain and her blinding panic, it was a miracle Jude didn't get in an accident herself on the way to the hospital. When she finally arrived, and somehow found her way to the signs saying "Accident and Emergency", she rushed immediately to the counter. "My boyfriend's been in an accident," she said frantically. "Can someone please tell me where he is?"

"Okay, ma'am. I'll need you to fill this out," the woman said calmly, trying to hand her a clipboard.

"No, you don't understand," she protested. "He's here and I need to find him."

"Jude?" She spun around to see a tall, dark-skinned guy with a shaved head standing behind her. His expression was a calmer version of her own panicked concern. "Hi, I'm Adam, we spoke on the phone. He's this way." He gestured with his head. Jude noticed he had blood on his shirt, and realized in horror that it must be Tommy's. She nodded and followed him as he walked to a set of large double doors.

"Is Tommy okay? What the hell happened?" Jude asked, all in a rush. "Is he okay? Is he–"

"He's alright as far as I know," Adam said as they walked back into the emergency department. "He's definitely alive, at the very least. He opened his eyes before they put him in the ambulance. He was talking, although I'm not sure he was making much sense. They were working on him when I got here. That's all I know."

"What happened?" she asked again.

"He rang me and I came to get him. He was crossing the street and… I don't know, he wasn't looking, and a car came. With the rain… he couldn't stop fast enough, and Tom…" Adam trailed off as he pulled one of the curtains and found the room behind empty, without even a bed. "Okay, wait, I know this is the right one." He got the attention of a nurse as Jude started to panic. "Excuse me, sorry, I think my friend was in this room just a minute ago? This is his partner. She's just arrived. Do you know where they've taken him?"

"I'm sorry, I don't," the nurse responded.

"Oh God oh God," Jude whispered. She couldn't breathe. What if… She couldn't even bear to think it. She couldn't lose Tommy too. She wouldn't survive it.

The nurse continued quickly, "But that's a trauma room, so it's possible they moved him once he was stabilized." She put a hand on Jude's arm. "It's okay. It's alright, I'll find out. What's the patient's name?" She directed the question to Adam, not to the still panic-stricken Jude.

"Tom, or, uh, Thomas. Quincy. He was… he was crossing the street and was hit by a car. You think he's okay?"

The nurse nodded. "No reason to suspect otherwise. One moment." She stepped behind the counter and got the attention of a man sitting at a computer. "Joe, do you know what happened to the patient in trauma two? Ped struck, name's Thomas Quincy. His partner is here."

"Dunno. Maybe they sent him to CT. He had head trauma, I think. He's Cavanaugh's patient. I'll page her."

The nurse came back around to them, gently putting a hand on Jude's shoulder. She had started to shake, her eyes wide and tearful, memories of bringing Caroline to this same hospital becoming harder and harder to push down. "We've paged the doctor, and she'll be here in just a moment. If there's anything else I can do for you Miss…"

"Harrison," Adam supplied when Jude just stared blankly at the nurse, not understanding.

"Oh." Jude figured out what she'd been asking. "Sorry. Yes. Jude Harrison," she murmured numbly.

The nurse's eyes widened briefly in recognition, but she didn't otherwise acknowledge it. "Well, Miss Harrison. The doctor will let you know where you can find him, and let you know how he's doing." She seemed to take in Jude's pallor, the shaking, her wide eyes. "How about you have a seat, okay love?" She guided Jude to a chair by the counter, and Jude sat without protest. "My name is Louise," she said to Adam and Jude both.

"Adam Lincoln." Adam shook nurse Louise's hand.

"There really is no reason to suspect he's anything other than just fine. He's in great hands." Louise smiled at Jude, intending to be comforting, but all it did was remind her of the nurse telling them to let the doctors work before Caroline died.

Just as Jude thought she might completely lose it, the nurse said, "Okay, here comes the doctor." Jude stood up as a tall woman walked up to them. She had bright red hair, pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head.

"You're with Tom Quincy?" she asked. Adam and Jude both nodded and she shook hands with Adam, then Jude. "I'm Doctor Cavanaugh," she said, her expression calm, but serious. She looked at Jude. "Your husband has been in a fairly serious accident."

Jude didn't correct her, just squeaked, "But he'll be okay?"

Dr. Cavanaugh nodded. "I believe so. He's stable, first of all. His vital signs are good, no signs of any serious bleeding in his abdomen, and he's breathing on his own. Those are all good things. He has at least two cracked ribs on the right side, and a pretty serious, well, what we call a tib-fib fracture, which is a break of both bones in his lower right leg. But what I'm most concerned about is that he seems to have sustained a fairly significant head injury. It could be just a bad concussion, but he was conscious when he first came in, and since then he's become harder and harder to wake, and that could be a sign of something serious. I've sent him to get a head and abdominal CT scan to check for any bleeding, or any swelling of his brain that we need to be seriously concerned about. That's where he is right now, but after he's done, they'll bring him to a room." She gave Jude a kind look. "He is seriously injured, but at this point there's no reason to believe he'll make anything less than a full recovery. I don't want you to panic, because there's no need for it, okay?" Jude nodded, feeling a little bit calmer. At least she said he was stable. That was good. The doctor thought he would make a full recovery. "Any questions?"

"Will he need surgery?" Adam asked. It sent a new spike of fear through Jude. She hadn't even considered that.

"I don't know that yet. Possibly. It'll depend on what the scans show."

"When will you know?" he asked.

"As soon as I get the scans, I'll tell you. I'd estimate maybe 20 minutes, maximum. Hopefully more like ten."

"When can I see him?" Jude asked.

"He should be back in a few minutes. Louise will take you to the room and you can wait for him. Anything else?" When neither said anything, she said "Okay then. Louise, can you take them to seven, please?"

"'Course, doctor," the nurse replied with a smile.

"Good. I will let you both know as soon as I know more, alright?" She smiled at them and then walked away.

"It's right this way," the nurse said as she lead them to a room that was too familiar to Jude, too much like one she'd been in just a few months ago. She sat in one of the chairs and pulled her knees up to her chest, trying to remain calm. Adam sat on the other side of the room, his knee bouncing up and down nervously.

Eventually, Jude broke the silence. "Why did he call you?"

"Hmm?" Adam looked up at her.

"You said he called you to come pick him up. From where?"

Adam hesitated, then said, "From a pub."

Jude squeezed her eyes shut in pain. "He was drinking."

"Alcoholics slip up," he said. "It happens."

She opened her eyes again and looked at him, her vision blurred with tears. "He told you, didn't he? About me, about…"

"Yes." He didn't say it in a mean or angry way, but she could sense the accusation behind it.

"This is my fault," she whispered. It wasn't a question.

He was silent for a long time before saying, "No. It's not your fault. It was an accident. Well, not the… cheating, but the car."

"If I hadn't… If… He'd never have been there, he wouldn't–"

"There's no use in thinking like that," he cut her off. "It won't change anything."

"What if he doesn't get better? What if he does but he doesn't ever forgive me?" Jude said, more to herself than anything. She heard Adam sigh, but he didn't respond. "This is where we brought her," she said quietly. "Same hospital."

He looked confused for a second before he realized, and his eyes widened a little. "Oh, God. Your daughter, I'm so sorry. I can't even imagine. I have twin girls, myself. They're eight years old, and if anything happened to them…" He shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry."

"I can't lose him too." She said it so softly she didn't know if he'd heard.

After another minute of them sitting in silence, a nurse pulled back the curtain and another wheeled in a gurney. Jude shot up out of her chair and gasped a little when she saw Tommy. She barely recognized him. He was pale, his lips almost white. His right leg was splinted, he was bandaged in what seemed like a thousand places, and a large, purple-red bruise was already starting to form on the right side of his forehead along his hairline. His eyes were closed, and he didn't move or react as the nurses carefully transferred him from the gurney to the bed, then connected the various wires attached to him to the monitors in the room. Jude started to shake again, covering her mouth with her hand.

"You can hold his hand, love," one of the nurses said gently as she prepared to wheel the gurney back out of the room. "Watch the leg and his ribs, but you can hold his hand." Jude pulled the chair up to the side of the bed and took his limp right hand in both of hers, pulling it up to her lips.

The other nurse, the man, turned to her. "You're his partner?" Jude nodded mutely. "I need to ask you a few questions, if that's okay."

Jude tried her best to answer as he asked her about Tommy's medical history, allergies, his family history, his blood type. As they talked her eyes stayed on Tommy, willing him to wake up, to open his eyes, squeeze her fingers, to please please please not die.

"Why won't he wake up?" Jude asked in a small voice when the nurse finished with his questions.

"Hard to say," he sighed. "Sometimes it's the brain's way of protecting itself after a trauma. It's trying to give itself time to heal. We've also given him a bit of pain medication, and that would have made him drowsy and harder to wake. There's no reason to think he won't wake up. The doctors will know more when they get the scans back." He checked the monitors, making a note in the chart. "His vital signs are still strong. He's breathing on his own, his blood pressure is okay, which means there's unlikely to be bleeding in his belly… There's a lot that's good news. The doctor will be in in a moment. Is there anything else you need? Any family we can call?"

"M-maybe Sadie, my sister. Sh-she's in Toronto, but I want her to know," Jude stammered. When they'd brought Caroline in, Sadie had been her first call, and Tommy had requested she call Kwest. "And our friend Kwest," she added. The nurse asked her to write down the numbers, and she did, looking up Kwest's number in her phone with shaking hands. Jude felt like she should probably call her sister herself, but she was too much of a wreck right now to hold it together long enough to explain what was going on.

After the nurse left, with the promise he'd make the calls, Dr. Cavanaugh entered with a short, grey-haired man. He quickly took a look at the chart, the monitors, and shined a light into each of Tommy's eyes. He frowned and quietly said something about the pupils to Dr. Cavanaugh, who nodded. Finally, the man introduced himself to them as Doctor Ian Finch, and said he was a neurosurgeon.

Jude shot up out of the chair. "Brain surgery?" she practically shrieked. "He needs brain surgery?"

"I know this is frightening, but you need to stay calm," Dr. Finch said, putting a hand up. "What Mr. Quincy has is something called an epidural haematoma, which means that he's bleeding into the area between his brain and his skull."

Adam sucked in a sharp breath and Jude started to cry and whisper "no no no" over and over again.

"When that happens," the doctor continued quickly, but calmly, "it puts pressure on the brain. Sometimes these types of bleeds can resolve on their own, and this one is not terribly large, but given his worsening neurological condition, we need to do an emergency craniotomy to evacuate the blood."

"Craniotomy, what does that mean?" Adam asked. Jude hadn't heard anything after the fact that there was bleeding in his brain.

"It means we take off a small piece of the skull, go in and get the blood clot out, make sure any active bleeding is stopped, then put the piece of the skull back on and close."

"Oh my God. How soon?" Adam's voice sounded to Jude like it was coming from a long way away, and all she was really aware of was the whooshing of her blood pounding in her ears.

"Immediately. We'll prep him and take him up to theatre as soon as possible. Miss Harrison, you're his medical proxy, so we'll need your consent."

"You can't cut into his head!" she cried. "You can't do that, you can't! He can't need surgery, his brain can't be bleeding, he can't die! He can't die!" She grabbed one of Tommy's shoulders and shook him. "Tommy, baby, please wake up! Come on, you need to wake up!" She felt the doctor grab her shoulders and she pushed him away. "I'm so sorry, Tommy, I'm so so sorry about everything. You cannot do this to me, Quincy, you can't! Not after Caroline, please! Please, Tommy!"

"Miss Harrison, you need to calm down!" Dr. Cavanaugh insisted. "This isn't helping him!"

Jude just kept shouting. "I love you! Tommy you can't do this to me! You need to wake up! Please, Tommy, I'm so sorry! Wake up!" As the panic completely overwhelmed her, Jude felt sort of like she was watching all of this happen to someone else. Not an out of body experience, exactly, just some sort of dissociation. She was no longer in control of what she was doing. She was aware that she was screaming, shouting Tommy and Caroline's names at the top of her lungs, but at the same time, there was nothing she could do to stop. She felt strangely separate from herself. Strong arms pulled her off of Tommy, but she struggled against the man holding her, screaming that they couldn't take Tommy away from her.

After one of her elbows connected hard with the man's nose, they stopped trying to reason with her. Dr. Cavanaugh shouted, "Get me three of haloperidol IM," and a moment later Jude felt the needle go into her arm. She felt herself grow weaker, her arms growing heavy, until finally everything went dark.

* * *

 **A/N:** Aaaaaah so intense.

Btw, I apologize for the medical terminology. There's a fair amount of it in these next few chapters, and it's possible that it may get excessive at points for non-medical/non-science people. I happen to be a chronically ill, pre-med, neuroscience major (and a giant nerd) so the terms make sense to me to the point where I don't always even notice it. I actually took quite a bit of it out, but there's probably even more than I realize that I couldn't figure out how to take out without the scenes with doctors feeling unrealistic to me. I don't believe I've used any terminology that hasn't been immediately followed by an explanation, but if I have then I'm sorry. To an extent I do think the use of big scary medical words contributes to the overwhelmed feeling that the characters are experiencing (being sick and talking to doctors can be very overwhelming, I know from experience!) but I hope it doesn't distract. Even if you have no interest in medicine, don't let words like "subconjunctival haemorrhage" make your eyes glaze over.

On the flip side, if you happen to know more than I do about medicine, especially emergency medicine in the UK specifically, please let me know if I've gotten something wrong. For various reasons, my experience with emergency medicine is pretty extensive for a 22-year-old non-medical professional, but it's all confined to the US, so I'm sure I've made mistakes. Actually, if there are any British people reading any of my stories set in London, I apologize for what I'm sure are many glaring Americanisms in my various English characters. Writing in a different dialect is hard. Generally speaking, if you ever see any kind of error, let me know. I'm a pedant at heart, so I'd be grateful for any chance to improve accuracy.

But, as usual, I digress. Thank you for reading and reviewing. I'm sorry this story is so sad.


	19. Chapter 19

Jude awoke in a hospital bed some time later, feeling heavy. She was unsure where she was for a minute, and nothing seemed quite real, like she was slowly waking from a dream. She heard a voice say, "Miss Harrison?" and she turned to see a nurse standing over her. Jude's hair was in her eyes, and she tried to reach up to brush it out of her face, only to find that her limbs were restrained, soft cuffs around her wrists and ankles.

"What?" she asked groggily. "Why am I…"

"We had to give you some medication to calm you down. You haven't been out for long, just a few minutes."

"Oh." Jude felt like maybe she should be scared, waking up strapped to a bed in a hospital, but all she felt was dead tired, a medication-induced calm keeping her from feeling much of anything.

"I'm sorry about the restraints," the nurse said, noticing Jude's confusion as she tried to move her arms. "You injured a nurse. It was a precaution. I can have the doctor come in and take them off. Just a moment." She left the room and Jude tried to remember what had happened. She had a vague recollection of shouting, of Tommy laying in a bed, unconscious…

Oh. Tommy. He was in an accident. Something about brain surgery? Her heart clenched a little as it started to come back to her, but for the most part, the medication kept any feelings of real panic away, leaving just a dull fear. It wasn't that she wasn't scared, but the feeling felt somehow far away. The idea of the fear was there, but the sensation of it, the reality, was absent.

"Miss Harrison," she recognized Dr. Cavanaugh's voice, and looked up to see her standing at the bedside. "If you can promise me you're going to remain calm and you're not a danger to yourself or to anyone else, we can take off the restraints."

"Yes, of course," Jude said. She couldn't imaging continuing to freak out with the medication in her system, and she felt far too tired and sluggish to make any sudden moves that might hurt someone. "I'm really sorry if I hurt anyone, I swear I didn't mean to…" She was slowly getting more and embarrassed as she realized what exactly had happened.

"It was an accident, dear. You just hit him in the face with your elbow. He's fine. Nothing serious," the nurse said as she undid the restraints on Jude's wrists, then her ankles.

"Good. That's good. I'm really sorry I freaked out like that," she said as the nurse helped her sit up and raised the head of the bed to support her back.

"Do you have a history of any psychosis? Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anything like that?" Dr. Cavanaugh asked. Jude shook her head. The doctor made a note in her chart. "Any drugs? Cocaine, methamphetamine, PCP?"

"No, never," Jude insisted quickly.

"Has this ever happened before?"

"No. It's just… Two months ago, my daughter died." Jude's voice cracked a little, and she cleared her throat. "She was only a baby. 17 weeks. We brought her here, to this hospital, and she just… died. I just couldn't handle… I don't know."

"I am very sorry for your loss," the doctor said, looking sympathetic. Jude nodded mutely and ran a hand through her hair. "It was most likely just an anxiety attack, in that case," the doctor continued. "It's a very high-stress situation."

"Where's Tommy? Does he still need surgery? Do you need my consent still?"

"Because it was an emergency, we needed to get him the surgery anyway. We sent him up while you were asleep. The operation will most likely take about 4 to 6 hours."

"Where is Adam? The other guy who was with me?" Jude realized suddenly that he was nowhere to be found. Surely he wouldn't have just gone home?

"I believe he went up to the surgical waiting rooms. It'll be a while before we can release you, because we need to wait for the medication to wear off a bit more, but eventually you can go up there as well. Would you like someone to go and find your friend?"

"No," Jude said quickly. "That's fine. I don't really know him, actually. He's a friend of Tommy's, but I'd never met him before tonight."

"I would feel more comfortable if you had someone here with you. They said they contacted your sister. Will she be here?"

Jude shook her head. "Sadie lives in Toronto. I'm fine, really. I'll talk to my sister, I won't lose it again, I promise." The doctor seemed skeptical, but she left, saying that they'd observe her for at least another hour before printing discharge paperwork, at which point she could go up to wait for Tommy to get out of surgery. After the doctor left, Jude found herself unable to stay awake, despite everything, and she let the effects of the medication pull her back down.

.

An hour or so later, after a nurse woke her up when she came in to check on her, Jude decided it was probably time to call Sadie. She wasn't sure if it was just because of the medication, but she was holding herself together pretty well now. Tommy would be okay. They would get the blood out of his head, and everything would be okay. They probably did this kind of surgery all the time, at a busy trauma centre in the middle of London. He would be fine.

Sadie answered almost immediately. "Jude!" She sounded panicked, which made Jude start to worry again.

"Hi Sadie. Sorry for not calling you myself before."

"They said they had to sedate you?"

Jude squeezed her eyes shut. "Yeah. I guess I lost it."

"What the hell happened? Is Tommy okay? Are you okay?"

"He's in surgery. His brain was bleeding. I don't know if he's okay, but the doctors seemed to think the surgery would fix it. I guess I'm okay. I'll be fine as long… as long as he's okay."

"Oh my God." Sadie sounded horrified. "Well, you sound like you're okay, considering."

Jude sighed. "That might be the meds. You should have seen me an hour ago."

"Oh, Jude, I'm so sorry. I can't believe… You just don't deserve this."

"You'd be surprised," Jude muttered under her breath.

"What?"

"Nothing. Did you talk to Kwest? They said they would call him too."

"Yeah, actually, he called me. We're both flying out there. We'll be at Heathrow tomorrow afternoon. D just booked the flights for us."

"Oh, Sades, you don't need to do that." To make them fly out for the second time in as many months? It was so ridiculous that it almost would've been funny if it weren't so sad.

"No way. You're my sister, Jude. I'm coming out there. And Kwest is his best friend, he has to be there. You know Tommy would want him there." Jude didn't object to that. It was true that Kwest was the person Tommy would want by his side, especially since he might not want anything to do with Jude.

"Yeah, you're right. Okay." Jude sighed again. She just wanted to go back to sleep, to wake up and find out that this was all a dream. She wanted to rewind six hours and have Tommy not get hurt, 24 hours and have Benjamin not try to kiss her, two months and have Caroline not get sick, three years, to when she was 18, the few months when her relationship with Tommy was simple, to ten years old, when everything was simple, rewind to when she didn't have so much responsibility, where so much wasn't at stake. Just as Jude started to feel like crying again, Dr. Cavanaugh walked into the room. "The doctor is here. I have to go. I'll call you when he's out of surgery, or when I know something, okay?"

"Okay. He'll be okay, Jude. He will."

Jude sighed and said, "I know," although of course she didn't.

"I love you."

"Love you too, Sades." She hung up and apologized to the doctor.

"Your sister?" Dr. Cavanaugh asked.

"Yes. She's flying out here tomorrow. Can I go?"

"In a moment," was the doctor's response. She did an exam, shining light in Jude's eyes, asking her to follow the end of a pen with her eyes, tested her reflexes, the usual neurological tests. After that, she sat in the chair beside the bed and asked, "How do you feel?"

"I'm fine," Jude answered, too quickly. The doctor raised her eyebrows. Jude corrected herself with a sigh. "I'm scared. I don't know what I'll do if he… Does that mean I can't leave?"

The doctor smiled. "If that were grounds for a hold, we would need a much bigger psychiatric ward. I just need to know that you're not going to hurt yourself or hurt anyone else."

"I won't," Jude assured her. And it was true. Even right after losing Caroline, even in the worst of it, when nothing felt worth doing and life didn't really feel worth living, even then she'd never seriously considered hurting herself.

"Then I'll have the nurse discharge you."

"Thank you," Jude said.

"For what it's worth," the doctor added as she was leaving, "the outcomes for this kind of a bleed, this size, with quick treatment, they're very good."

Jude just nodded.


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N:** Because the last chapter kind of a filler, here is another. (And yes, I had already planned to do this before I woke up to your review this morning, anon from last chapter.)

It happens occasionally that a chapter won't fit well with what precedes or follows it, so I end up with chapters where not that much happens. I don't think it has happened _that_ often, but I do understand that last chapter could be accurately called a filler. That's the problem with posting in installments, filler chapters aren't as irritating if you can just move on right after, but with time in between posting they're given equal weight to chapters with very important plot points.

I don't actually think that the last chapter was _so_ gratuitous that it should've been cut entirely, but I've said before that one of my weaknesses as a writer is my unwillingness to cut things out while editing. I am weak. I get emotionally attached to scenes and cutting them makes me sad (although I did actually cut quite a bit from around this part of the story because it felt like it was dragging, haha oops, apparently it wasn't enough.) In academic writing this happens too, where significant amounts of the feedback I get consist of "you can cut all this and not lose anything important" and I'm like oh :(

So hey, you're probably right, and this story is not as tightly written as it should be. I write and publish without any editor, so maybe that's a side effect. Saying to myself "make sure something interesting happens in each chapter" isn't enough, because I don't always have a good idea of what will be interesting to other people. Please don't attribute malice to anything, I'm not dragging anything out on purpose, there's no monetary gain from it a la Charles Dickens, but yes, I am willing to admit that this is one of the bigger weaknesses of my writing. Your feedback is appreciated, and has been noted, though I don't know how much will change since the story is already written. I apologize for being annoying.

Without any more unnecessary words, here is chapter 20:

* * *

When she was finally discharged, Jude found her way up to the surgical waiting room, where Adam was still sitting, nodding off in a chair in the corner. She felt instantly awkward, but her desire to know if he'd heard anything overcame her embarrassment, and she sat next to him, saying his name quietly, then again a little louder when he didn't respond. He looked up at her and blinked a few times. "Oh, Jude. Hi." He gave her an apologetic look. "Sorry, I… I didn't know if you would want me there."

"It's fine. It doesn't matter. I'm okay. Just with it being the same hospital, and with the surgery and everything, I freaked out, and I'm sorry. Forget it. Have they updated you at all?"

"Understandable. And yeah, about…" he checked his watch, "20 minutes ago someone came out here and said they had opened him up and they were going to start taking out the blood. They made a big point to say that the blood isn't technically in his brain, it's around it. She said 'they don't even open up the dura' which is like the outside cover of the brain or something? So it's brain surgery, but it's also not really brain surgery, I suppose. They said it would be a couple more hours even after they got the blood out."

Jude tried not to think about his head being open. She nodded. "Thanks." Suddenly a thought occurred to her and she laughed, putting her hand over her mouth. Adam looked at her like she was crazy, like actually insane, clinically, like maybe she was hysterical and losing it again. "Sorry," she apologized quickly. "It's not really funny, I just…" She shook her head. "Never mind." He continued to look at her quizzically, so she explained "Brain surgery. I just realized. They would have had to shave some of his hair. It's not funny, really, it's sad, but Tommy has this thing about his hair. I just realized that's probably the part he'll be most upset about." She let out another little giggle even as her eyes filled with tears. "Forget it, it's stupid."

"I see." Adam smiled at her. "That is funny." He looked away and pulled out his phone.

Jude wiped the tears away quickly, and they sat in silence for a long time, until a young woman in blue scrubs walked into the room. A man in a chair on the other side of the waiting room looked up, but the woman headed over to Jude and Adam, who had fallen asleep with his head against the wall next to him. The woman's expression was calm, she didn't look worried or overly serious, but Jude felt a surge of anxiety anyway when it became clear she was there about Tommy. "Are you with Mr. Quincy?" she asked, and Jude nodded.

Jude nudged Adam's arm, and he groaned, but sat up, stretching and saying, "Sorry, I'm awake."

"Dr. MacKenzie. I'm assisting Dr. Finch." She reached out a hand, and Jude shook it.

"Jude Harrison," she said quickly. "I'm his girlfriend. Is he okay?"

"He's doing fine," the doctor replied. "I just wanted to give you an update. We've removed the clot, and we've cauterized the injuries around the haematoma to make sure it doesn't continue to bleed. All that's left now is to close."

"So it's almost done?" Adam asked. "How long?"

"Maybe an hour or so, possibly more. Once we've closed and bandaged everything, we'll try to wean him off the ventilator—remove the breathing tube—and then if that goes well he'll be moved to ICU right away."

Jude tried to push away the image of the nurse removing the tube from Caroline's throat. "If it goes well?" she asked.

"It depends on a few factors. With this type of injury and operation, sometimes a patient needs a little more time on the ventilator before they can breathe on their own. It's not usually a problem. Typically we'll move the patient to ICU with the breathing tube still in and give them more time."

"And then he'll wake up?"

She hesitated. "It may be a few hours. The anesthesia can take a while to wear off, and there's swelling that may need to go down… We'll see. I have to get back in there, I just wanted to give you an update, but everything is going well. He's doing great."

 _He's doing great._ Jude repeated the words to herself as the doctor left. _Everything will be okay._

… ... … ... …

The first thing Tommy became aware of as he slowly woke up was not the pain in his head. Though the burning, pounding ache was all-consuming, though he could feel it in his teeth and his eyes and his stomach, it was not the first thing he noticed.

The first thing he noticed was that he was choking to death. Something was in his throat, in his actual airway. He tried to draw breath and found he couldn't breathe around whatever it was blocking his throat, and something was pulling the air out of his lungs even as he tried to bring air in. If he had been thinking, he may have noticed that he didn't feel starved for oxygen, that the machine pumped air into and out of his lungs at regular intervals, but instead his instincts kicked in and he panicked. He tried to cry out, but all that produced was pain in his throat, no noise. He was thrashing around, though he was still groggy and every movement sent pain shooting through his head.

In an instant Jude was out of the chair and standing over him. Her blue eyes were wide and frightened. "Tommy, Tommy, hold on. It's okay, I'll get someone." His hand reached up to his mouth and felt a tube there, held in place by tape and plastic. In his frantic desire to get it out of his throat, he barely registered that, though he'd tried to bring both hands up to his face, only his right had moved.

Just as he was about to pull on the tube, a man came in and pushed his hand down. "Mr. Quincy I need you to relax. You have a breathing tube in your throat. I know it's uncomfortable, but you're okay. I will get the tube out in a moment, but I need you to relax." As the nurse spoke, Tommy did as he asked, realizing slowly that he was still breathing, that, as uncomfortable as the forceful in and out of breath from the machine was, he wasn't suffocating.

"Is he okay?" Jude asked through tears.

"He's fighting the intubation. It's good, actually. It means he should be ready to breathe on his own." He turned to another woman in scrubs that had come in with them. "Grab the resp. nurse and page Dr. Finch, please." Tommy continued to cough and choke, though every movement hurt in a thousand places. "Mr. Quincy, just relax," the man said again in a soothing voice. "Let the machine breathe for you. Don't fight it. Just one more minute here okay? You're okay. Everything is fine."

Tommy's eyes searched frantically for Jude, who was standing in the corner of the room looking very pale and helpless. He met her eyes and she rushed to his side when she saw his look of fear, grabbing his right hand. He squeezed her hand, and his tight grip made her feel a little better. If he could still hold her hand that tightly, maybe that meant he would be okay.

Someone came in then and removed the tube from Tommy's throat. He coughed and coughed, tasting blood in his mouth, and each cough sent pain stabbing through his head and chest, but the nurses kept assuring him that it was okay, telling him to just breathe. He tried to put his hand to the side of his ribs, which felt like they were on fire, but Jude was still holding his right hand, and his left stubbornly refused to lift off the mattress. "My hand," he said when the coughing fit subsided, his voice a hoarse whisper.

The surgeon came in, then, and came over to Tommy's bedside. "Morning! I'm Dr. Finch," he said brightly. "I did a little operation on your head earlier. It's good to see you awake. Can you look here for me?"

He tried to get Tommy to follow his finger with his eyes, but Tommy protested, looking pointedly at his left arm. "My hand!"

"Does it hurt?"

"No," Tommy rasped, "won't move."

The doctor frowned. "Can you make a fist for me?" Tommy found that with effort he could curl his fingers a little, though not all the way into a fist. The doctor had him wiggle his toes, and found that the movement of his left leg was impaired as well, though not gone. "Can you tell me your name?" he asked.

"Tom. Tom Quincy." His voice was starting to return.

"Do you know what month it is?"

"Uh… May. What's wrong with my arm?"

"Not sure yet. Could you stick your tongue out for me?" Tommy continued to do as the doctor asked, though he became increasingly frustrated at the ridiculousness of the tests and questions. Eventually the doctor came back to Tom's arm and leg, seeing if he had sensation in the limbs, and if it felt the same as on the right side. Tommy could feel the touch, though it felt strange, numb and tingly, sort of like when you lay on your hand and it falls asleep, but before the pins and needles sensation fully starts up.

"Weakness on one side is not unheard of with this type of trauma," the surgeon said eventually. "It could be caused by the injury to your brain, or by a neck injury in the accident, and we'll get some scans, but I'm not too worried. You may need some physiotherapy for it, but because you have sensation and some movement, it's likely you'll regain function. Meanwhile, everything else looks great. With this type of injury and surgery, our first worry is usually about higher functions like loss of speech or memory, but those seem to be intact. All things considered, you're doing very well."

"His eyes?" Jude asked, softly. She looked scared, her cheeks tear-streaked and her eyes red and puffy.

The doctor nodded. "That's normal."

"What's wrong with my eyes?" Tommy asked, alarmed.

"Nothing serious. It's something called a subconjunctival haemorrhage. It's fairly common in accidents like this. The tiny capillaries on the surface of your eyes have burst, and it's caused parts of the sclera—the whites of your eyes—to turn red. It can look frightening, but it's not dangerous, and it will recede over the next couple of weeks."

The barrage of medical terms made Tommy's already-foggy head spin, and he asked, "What even happened? I mean, I know I was in a car accident, but…"

"Of course. Sorry. I got caught up in the neurological exam and forgot to explain." He glanced down at the chart. "You have two fractured ribs on the right side, both bones in your lower right leg are fractured, and you have a few other minor injuries. But where I come in is, you had something called an epidural haematoma, which is bleeding around your brain, and that had to be evacuated surgically. We took off a piece of your skull on the right side, about here." He indicated by tapping on the side of his own head. "Don't worry, we put it back once we got the blood clot out and we were sure the swelling was minimal."

"Ow," was all Tommy could think of to say. His mind was foggy and his head was pounding even harder now.

The doctor turned to the nurse and said, "Go ahead and give him two more of morphine. I'll put in an order for patient-controlled," then turned back to Tommy. "You're going to be in pain for a while, but we'll give you medication to help with that. You'll spend another few days here in the ICU, then we'll move you to a different ward for at least a week, possibly more, then hopefully after that you can go home. Let me just check that incision, and then I'll be out of your hair and you can get some rest, okay?" Jude gasped at the sight of the incision when the doctor removed the bandage, putting her hand over her mouth. "It looks a little nasty right now," Dr. Finch acknowledged, "with the staples and the swelling, but really it's looking good." He replaced the bandage and left the room, instructing Tom to go back to sleep, saying a nurse would be back in a couple of hours to check on him.

Tommy realized as the surgeon left that he was unreasonably tired. That interaction felt like it had taken absolutely everything out of him. As the medication dulled the pain, all he wanted was to sleep. Jude was still holding his hand, though she was watching his bruised face, waiting for the inevitable moment when he would tell her to get out. He looked at her with sad eyes.

"How much do you remember?" Jude asked quietly after a moment.

Tommy sighed and closed his eyes for a moment before answering. Even his eyelids felt like lead. "I don't really remember getting hit, but I remember the ambulance and maybe a little of first getting to the hospital. Nothing after that."

She hesitated. "And before that?"

He would have scoffed had he not known it would hurt his head and chest. Instead, he just frowned at her. "I remember, Jude." Did she really think he wouldn't? He pulled his hand out of hers.

He saw tears fill her eyes, but she fought them back. "I can leave. If you don't want me here." She quickly wiped away a stray tear. "I needed to see that you were okay, but I can go."

His heart sank at the idea of her leaving. He was still angry at her, but he was also scared and in pain, and he didn't want to be alone. More than that, he wanted _her_ there. He wanted Jude by his side, not just someone. Maybe it would have been easier if he wanted her gone, but he didn't. That same part of him that always wanted her near him wanted her now. That part of him didn't want to let her leave, even if her being here tore him apart. He tried to take a deep breath and winced at the pain in his broken ribs.

Jude stood up, but saw the conflict in his expression and didn't move towards the door. "So, uh, Adam just left because he has to go pick up his kids, but he said he'd be back soon to see how you were doing. And Kwest and Sadie are getting on a plane soon. They'll be here this afternoon."

"They didn't have to do that."

"Yeah they did," she sighed. "They care about you, Tom."

"Hmm. At least someone does." It was a low blow, and he watched Jude's face crumple, watched her start to cry again, though she tried to hide it.

"I deserved that. I'll leave you alone. Sorry." She sniffled and wiped at her eyes again, walking to the door.

His heart clenched. "No, Jude, wait," he said quickly. "I didn't mean that. I'm just… it hurts, and I… Stay. You can stay." His still-hoarse voice cracked, and she came back to sit in the chair next to the bed, though she didn't touch him. Every part of him felt impossibly heavy, but he turned his hand palm-up and moved it an inch closer to her, giving her permission to hold it again.

She noticed, and grabbed his hand, trying to be careful of all the tubes and wires that were connected to him. "I care," she said quietly.

"I know," he murmured as he let the exhaustion and the medication pull him away again.

* * *

 **A/N:** I don't know if you can tell, but I understand head injuries significantly better than I did when I wrote _Lost and Found_ and accidentally used the term "intercranial bleed" instead of "intracranial." Oh past me, I am embarrassed on your behalf. (The prefix "intra" means "within" so intracranial bleeding is bleeding within the cranium (the skull) whereas "inter" means "between" so intercranial bleeding would be bleeding _between_ two skulls, from one skull to another, which is definitely not a thing. Ha.)

What I've chosen here is probably not the most _common_ constellation of symptoms and treatment one would see with this type of accident, but it is at least _plausible_ given the awesome complexity of the brain, and therefore the wide range of possible effects from injury to it. (Told you I was studying neuroscience. Can you tell I love this stuff?)


	21. Chapter 21

It was dark out when Sadie woke up, not that she'd been sleeping very well to begin with. Kwest would be there soon to take her to the airport, so she ran through a mental checklist, making sure she wasn't forgetting anything important. When she was sure she had everything, she took her suitcase downstairs, sitting in the lobby of her apartment building to wait.

Pulling up her e-mail on her phone, she saw a message from Darius, flagged as high importance. The subject line read, "Jude video: you need to see this." There was a YouTube link, and she put in her headphones and clicked it. Her heart plummeted when she saw what it was. The title was "Instant Psycho– Crazy Jude Returns!" It was a cell phone video, clearly taken in a hospital.

It was hard to tell what was happening at first, but the video zoomed in as someone pulled aside the curtain, rushing in to help. It was Jude, screaming at the top of her lungs, fighting wildly against the man trying to hold her back. It was hard to make out what Jude was saying, but Sadie knew she heard Tommy's name, and Caroline's. The person filming let out an "ohhh, shite!" when Jude's elbow connected with the man's nose, and Sadie winced when the doctor put the needle into her sister's arm, watching in horror as Jude slowly stopped fighting, going limp in a nurse's arms. The video ended after a gurney was brought and the curtain was closed around the room again. Yesterday when the hospital had called, the nurse said that Jude had needed to be sedated, but that was worse than Sadie had imagined.

The video had been posted just over two hours previous and already had almost 20,000 views, and that number was rising fast. "Shit," Sadie muttered, pulling out her phone and dialing Jude. She didn't answer right away, and Sadie started to hope her sister was finally getting some sleep.

A moment later, though, Jude's voice answered. "Hey." The word was a sigh. She sounded exhausted.

"Hey. I didn't wake you, did I?"

"No. I was up."

"Is he awake?" Sadie asked. Jude had sent her a text saying that Tommy had woken up, that his breathing tube was out, and that, in spite of some problems with moving his left arm and leg, the doctor said everything looked good.

"Sleeping." She spoke softly, presumably so she didn't wake him up. "But they wake him up again every couple of hours when they come in to check on him. So far they seem to think he's okay, even if he's still having trouble moving his arm and leg. Are you at the airport?"

"Not yet. Kwest is coming to get me in a few minutes. I just called to say you might have a PR situation on your hands. I know that's the last thing you want to worry about right now, but you should call your people."

Jude groaned. "I can't deal with Benjamin's shit right now. This is just a way bigger deal. People can think what they want."

"What? Benjamin is the artist you're producing, right? What happened with him? What situation are _you_ talking about?"

"Wait, what? What's the PR situation, then?"

"There's a video on YouTube of you freaking out in the hospital."

"Oh God," Jude groaned again. "That's just perfect."

"D sent it to me. I think he still has a Google alert on you or something. Hopefully your PR people already know too, but you should probably talk to someone, see if they can can get it taken down, and at least break the real story. Right now it's you screaming and being sedated with no context."

"Why would someone post that?" Jude sounded like she was starting to cry. "What's wrong with people?"

"Oh, Jude, it's okay. It's not a big deal. I'm sorry. I just wanted to warn you. It's going to be fine. Do you want me to call your boss? I do work in PR, after all."

"It's fine, Sadie, you don't have to do that. I can take care of it." Jude sniffled.

"You're exhausted, Jude. You need to sleep. I'll deal with it."

"I can do it. You don't have–"

"I'm calling. That's final. I'll let Nora know, then I'll get on a plane and let your people take care of it, okay?"

"Fine," she conceded. "Thank you."

"What did you mean about Benjamin?" Sadie didn't understand why her sister would have jumped to the conclusion that Benjamin was involved when she mentioned a PR situation. "What happened with him?"

"It's… complicated." It wasn't exactly complicated, it was pretty simple really, but Jude didn't want to talk about it right now, not over the phone, not while Tommy lay in a hospital bed a few feet from her. "I'll explain it when you get here, okay? Don't worry about it. There are bigger issues right now."

"Tommy's going to be okay. It's going to be fine."

"Yeah, okay."

"Get some sleep, Jude. I'll see you soon, okay?"

"I'll try. Love you Sades."

"I love you too, Jude. Tell Tom I say hang in there."

"Will do."

When Jude hung up, Sadie quickly looked through her contacts for the number of the assistant to Jude's boss. She didn't have the number because of Jude, but she'd needed it as part of publicity stuff for World Instant Star when part of the competition was in London a couple of years ago. As she was about to dial, a text came in from Kwest saying he was here. She stood and grabbed her suitcase, still looking down at her phone, nearly running into Kwest as she headed to the door. "Oh! Sorry, thought you were waiting outside."

"Figured I'd help you with your bags." Kwest shrugged.

Sadie had to smile at that. Always such a gentleman. "I got it, but thanks Kwest."

He took the handle of the suitcase from her anyway as they walked out. "How is Jude doing?" Kwest asked as he opened the door for her. "Do you know anything more about Tommy?"

"She's… exhausted. Hanging in there, though. And you got her texts too, yes?"

"Yeah. He woke up, they said he's okay, but he's having trouble with his left side."

"That's all I know too. I talked to her just before you got here, but nothing has really changed."

"I guess no news is good news at this point." Kwest sighed.

"Hey." Sadie turned to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. He looked exhausted, and his forehead was creased with worry. "Tommy's okay, Kwest. He's going to be fine." She put her arms around his neck and pulled him into a hug, which he returned. He smelled comfortingly of soap and the same aftershave he'd been using for years. She kissed him quickly on the cheek and let go.

"I know. He woke up at least. Hopefully the worst is over." As he opened the trunk of his car and put her suitcase in he said "I can't believe we're heading over there again, so soon. It's ridiculous, they can't catch a break."

"I know," Sadie sighed as they got in the car. "Did the nurse who called you tell you Jude had to be sedated in the emergency room?"

"Yeah, she mentioned it, but she said Jude was fine so I didn't ask for details. Do you know what that was about?"

Sadie winced. "She freaked out when they told her Tommy needed brain surgery. Started screaming at the top of her lungs, elbowed someone in the face when they tried to pull her off of him. They had to hold her down and inject her with the sedative."

"God," Kwest breathed.

"It gets worse. Someone took a video and sold it. It's posted online. Darius sent me the link like fifteen minutes ago. It's on its way to viral. It's barely two hours old and it's broken 20,000."

"Who the hell does something like that?" Kwest fumed. Even after all these years in the biz he was still sometimes caught off-guard by how awful the press stuff could be.

"You can't see Tom at all in the video, so it looks like Jude just lost it. They're calling her Crazy Jude again."

"She has PR people on it, right?"

"I don't know. I'm going to call her boss right now, make sure someone's on it before we get on the plane."

"Anything I can do?"

Sadie smiled a little. "I've got it. Thanks though."

… ... … ... …

"Hey Tristan, uh, this is Jude… Harrison. Um. Your brother… Tommy's been in an accident. Last night. He's okay, but he needed surgery and stuff, uh… brain surgery. So I just thought you should know. I'd want to know. So anyway, yeah. It's alright, like he woke up after surgery and everything, and he's still in ICU but he's okay… but I thought you should know. And… yeah I guess that's it. You can call me back at this number and I'll update you when I know more. Bye."

"Who is it?" Tommy's groggy voice asked from behind her as she hung up his cell phone.

She turned. "Hey. Didn't know you were awake."

"I wasn't." He winced as he shifted in the bed. A couple of hours before, the doctor had given him a button to control the morphine, and he reached for it, pushing it once. "Who was it on the phone?" he asked again.

"Tristan," she admitted, somewhat sheepishly.

His scowl was not surprising. Jude had expected he'd be upset. "You called my brother?"

"I left a message. I thought he should know."

"You shouldn't have bothered him."

"He's your brother, Tommy."

"Exactly!" Tommy protested. _"My_ brother. I would have told him eventually, but it's not your place!"

"If Sadie were in the hospital, I would want to know about it as soon as possible," she argued.

He scoffed, wincing a little at the pain it caused. "Tristan and I are not you and Sadie."

"That's not the point," she said, exasperated. "You almost died! You're still… You could still…" She squeezed her eyes shut as tears threatened again. "He should know. I'd want to know, and no matter what you say, I know you would too, if the roles were reversed. I called him, I left a voicemail, end of story," she snapped, sitting back down in the chair next to his bed.

Tommy sighed. "Fine." He was too tired to really fight with her, and she was probably right anyway. "How long until Sadie and Kwest get here, do you know?"

"They're on the plane, but a few hours at least." Jude put a hand up to her forehead. Tommy noticed that the circles under her eyes were so dark they were almost starting to look like bruises, and felt a twinge of concern. He pushed it away. He wanted to be angry at her. Her phone buzzed and she groaned softly as she looked down at it.

"What is it?" he asked weakly.

"Nothing. It's… PR stuff. They need me to tweet something. There's kind of an issue. Don't worry about it."

"He went to the tabloids?" Fatigue sapped the intended derision from his tone.

She winced. "No. It's not about that, it's… about this." She gestured around them, to the hospital room. "Someone posted a video of me last night in the ER… seriously, it's under control, you don't need to worry about it."

"A video of what?" He frowned. He wasn't sure if it was just the medication fogging his thinking, but he couldn't think of a reason someone would have filmed her.

Jude realized suddenly that he didn't know. "Oh. I… It's not a big deal, I just… I kind of freaked out. When they told me you needed surgery. I was already kind of panicking, and I couldn't stop picturing Caroline, and I thought you were going to…" She swallowed hard, fighting down lump that had formed in her throat. "I sort of lost it. I couldn't lose you too, and I… I guess I was screaming, and I, uh… They had to sedate me. It's not a big deal. I'm fine. It's fine."

Tommy felt something in his chest clench. To some extent, he saw the cheating as, not just a betrayal, but a sign that she didn't really love him, didn't really care. Deep down, though, he knew it wasn't true. The extreme of her concern for him, that it truly had crossed over into panic, it proved that. "Oh, Jude…" He couldn't quite reconcile all of the conflicting emotions in him, especially with the cloud of morphine in his brain, but her pain was still his pain, and he found himself reaching out to her.

His reach fell short at first, but she leaned in far enough for him to rest his hand on her cheek. She put her hand over his, pressing it gently to her face for a moment before saying "I'm okay." She turned her face and kissed his palm before lowering their entwined hands to the mattress again. "Just don't die, okay?" she whispered.

"Doing my best," he murmured, shutting his eyes with a sigh.


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N:** AR: nice to hear you like the Kwest and Sadie, because there's more where that came from

* * *

Kwest gave up trying to sleep on the plane a few hours into the flight. He turned to see if Sadie was asleep in the seat next to him, and, to his surprise, met her eyes. It quickly became clear that she wasn't actually staring at him, just looking past him, staring into space, a slight frown on her face. She noticed him looking at her after a moment and smiled a little. "Sorry. I was thinking."

"Worrying," he corrected, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, well," she sighed. "I can't stop thinking about that video."

"Jude's PR people will take care of it. Once people hear what happened it'll be all sympathy. People are cruel, but this they'll understand. After what she's been through lately, no one's gonna blame her. They might even leave her alone a little bit."

"I know. It's not that, actually, it's just… God. Seeing her like that… Seeing them stick a needle in her arm… She's my baby sister, Kwest, and I can't do anything to help." Her eyes filled with tears.

He reached out and gently squeezed her shoulder. "You are helping. She knows you care, you dropped everything to come out and see them… That is helping. You're doing everything you can."

"I just wish they weren't going through all of this. I mean, God, hasn't it been hard enough for them, lately? And what if Tommy… I just feel like I'm supposed to protect her and I can't."

"Sadie, stressing about all this stuff isn't going to help," he said with a sympathetic look. "Tommy's going to be fine. You just have to try to keep your mind off of it. We should talk about something else. Anything else."

Sadie nodded and said the first thing that came to her mind. "It was nice of Darius to pull strings so we could fly out as soon as possible."

Kwest rolled his eyes. "Yeah, D's a real nice guy." Kwest and Sadie had been civil for years now, could even call themselves friends again, but Kwest's grudge against Darius had persisted.

"He cares about Tommy." Sadie sighed. "Whatever else you can say about him, he does care."

"Maybe," Kwest admitted.

"D can be a shark, we all know that, but I think he's loyal where it counts."

He scoffed. "You saying that as one of his heads of PR or as his ex?"

Sadie raised her eyebrows. "Both, I guess."

She and Darius had been together for almost two years, but Sadie hadn't ever known what to call their relationship. In _her_ mind, at least, when you're regularly sleeping with someone for that long, staying over almost half the time, it's serious. They had never explicitly laid out what their relationship was, though. Sadie had always shied away from that particular conversation, instinctively knowing that she might not like the answer. It had started to weigh on her a lot as time went on. Sadie thought maybe she loved him, though she'd never said it for fear of how he'd react, and Darius had never gone further than "I value you" in all the time they had been together. Not even "I care about you."

She started to feel increasingly like Darius's mistress, even though after the first few months there were no other women, as far as she knew. On some level she understood why they hadn't gone public, because it would have looked bad for both of them, Darius sleeping with a woman who had started as a receptionist and was now steadily working her way up. D assured her repeatedly that it was her talent, not their sexual relationship, that advanced her career, and that she was never entitled to any favors or special treatment. After a work trip to China during which Darius had reprimanded her for trying to hold his hand in public (and that's truly how it had felt—a stern-but-kind reprimand, like she was an unruly child) Sadie was close to giving him an ultimatum. When she returned from visiting Jude after the whole Megan ordeal, Darius had called her into his office and said casually, "I think you should give up your apartment."

He went on to say that he felt he'd found a better place for her to live. She'd been staying with him since he first found out Megan was missing, and now he suggested that when her lease was up at the end of the month, she could go ahead and move her things into his place instead of renewing. Sadie's eyes had widened. "You're asking me to move in with you?" It was what she had been waiting for, a real commitment.

"Sure." Darius had shrugged and added, "Until your new place is ready."

"My new place?" she asked, indignant. Darius told her that he was buying her a new place, a condo, and that he was having it entirely renovated.

"It's in a great part of town, closer to me and to work," he said nonchalantly. "I trust security there. The head of their security worked for me for a few years, and it feels less likely someone will see me if I'm there and sell the story."

If she hadn't felt like a secret mistress before, she did then. There was a time and a place for sneaking around, and two years into a relationship was not that time. "Are you ashamed of me, Darius?" she asked, hurt and angry.

"Ashamed?" Darius had been taken aback by her reaction. "Of course not. But I keep my private life private. A concept no one else in this damn business seems to grasp."

"There's a difference between keeping our relationship private, and keeping it secret!" she protested. "What, is there another woman? Are you secretly still married? Are you just juggling too many women, you're worried about crowd control?"

Darius looked confused. "I haven't been with another woman in a long time. Not since before Barbados." Sadie shut her eyes briefly at the memory of the week they'd spent together, the first time she'd been sure that this thing with her boss was something more than a casual hookup. Back then, when he said things like "when I see something I want, I go for it" it made her feel special, desirable, but it was increasingly starting to feel predatory, as if she was no more than a conquest. "Sadie," he continued, "are there other men?"

"No! But what if there were? Would that even bother you, Darius?" Sadie was becoming increasingly upset.

Darius shrugged, but his eyes darkened. "I don't like to share."

There that was again, talking about her like she was a possession. In the beginning that made her feel wanted. When it had been in contrast to her relationship with Kwest, where she'd felt stifled by the intensity of his love, by his desire to commit, it had felt exciting and freeing being with Darius, in a relationship without hard and fast rules. Now all she wanted was an ounce of that commitment. She wasn't asking for a marriage proposal, just some acknowledgement that this was more than sex. "What are we even doing, D?" she had asked finally. "What am I to you? Because right now I kind of feel like your dirty secret mistress. You're, what? Buying me a condo so you can keep fucking me in secret? A love nest so our affair is more convenient for you? Are you paying me? Are you my sugar daddy now?" She was becoming increasingly agitated, practically shouting at him.

"You don't want the condo, fine!" Darius still didn't seem to understand why she was upset. "I thought it would be perfect for you, so I bought it. It was a gift, not a _payment_ , but if that's how it felt, then I'm sorry." He gave her a look that said "better now?"

"You think this is just about the condo?!" Sadie was furious. "What are we doing, Darius?! What is this? What am I to you?!" she asked again.

"Sadie…" He gave her a patronizing look. "You just dealt with a family emergency, and you're taking it out on me." He reached out to grab her hand. "I value you, professionally _and_ personally, and you know that. This arrangement works."

Sadie pulled her hand back, looking at him in furious disbelief. "This _arrangement?!"_ she hissed.

Darius frowned. "What would you call it?"

"We've been together, we've been _exclusive_ , for almost two years!" she cried.

"This relationship? I don't see the difference."

She stared at him in disbelief for another several seconds before hissing, "Then that is why we are through, Darius. Clearly I should have ended it a long time ago." She had stormed out of his office and sat at her own desk, crying behind her closed office door.

.

"He could have done a lot worse by me," Sadie said to Kwest, now. "Our relationship was ridiculous, and I never should have let it go on as long as I did, but when I broke it off, he could have wrecked my career. He was still my _very_ powerful boss. He built my career, and he could have ruined it just as easily. I probably would have had grounds for a wrongful termination suit if he'd fired me, but he still could have kept my career from going anywhere. He didn't, though. He even promoted me a few months ago."

"That's not about loyalty," Kwest smiled to show he was kidding, that he didn't actually wish Darius ill, "you're just very good at your job. And for the record, if D had made the mistake of letting you go, NBR would have hired you in a second."

Sadie laughed. "Well, thanks. At least I have that going for me."

"You have a lot going for you, Sadie."

His sincerity made her blush, and she turned away, running a hand through her hair.

A piece of a conversation came back to Kwest's mind, suddenly, one they'd had when they were both in London after the baby was born. They'd spent an afternoon with Tommy and Jude, who were exhausted, but clearly also over the moon with happiness. Kwest had shaken his head and said, "Who would have thought, huh?"

Sadie had turned to him. "Thought what?"

"Nothing, just, if you'd asked me a few years ago who would have their shit together by now, have a baby, I'd never have guessed T and Jude. I mean, I love them, and clearly they've always loved each other, but… I guess I never would have expected them to actually cut the drama and settle down."

Sadie laughed. "I know what you mean. My impulsive rock star little sister having a baby before I do? It's crazy."

Kwest laughed too. "Little Tommy Q? My notorious womanizer and commitophobe best friend getting it together before me? Yeah, I never saw this coming."

Sadie had looked sad, suddenly. "I guess if you'd asked me a few years ago what couple would do this first…" She trailed off with a sigh.

Kwest had nodded, finishing her thought. "Yeah. There was a time when I'd have said it'd be us."


	23. Chapter 23

When Kwest and Sadie got to the hospital, Kwest came back to see Tom first. Jude looked up from her phone when he said, "Hey," softly.

"Kwest!" She was surprised by how good it was to see him again, and she stood up and put her arms around him. "Thank you so much for coming," she said, close to his ear. "I know you're busy."

"How could I not?" he said as they let go. "How you holding up, superstar?"

She sighed. "I'm… okay, I guess."

He gave her a sympathetic look and squeezed her shoulder. "How's Tommy?"

"Let's put it this way," Tommy's groggy voice came from the bed, "I have a tube somewhere no man wants a tube."

"Oh! You're awake." Jude turned and looked at him, surprised.

Kwest laughed and walked over to the bed. "That's rough, man, about the tube."

"You have no idea." Tommy smiled weakly. He reached his right hand up and they clasped hands briefly. "Thanks for coming, Kwest," he said as he let go.

"Yeah, 'course, T."

"Is Sadie here?" Jude asked.

"Yeah, but they said two visitors at a time, maximum," Kwest said. "She's out there."

"I'm gonna go say hi to her then." She hesitated by Tommy's bedside. Normally she'd have kissed him, but she didn't feel like she was allowed to do that anymore, so she just put a hand on his arm for a moment, saying, "I'll be back soon," before leaving the room.

Kwest raised his eyebrows, but didn't comment, sitting down in the chair by the bed. "What the hell happened to you, man?"

"I don't know. Didn't look both ways, I guess."

"Damn. Seriously, how are you doing?"

"I'm fine. Can't move my damn arm." He struggled to lift his hand a few inches off the mattress. "And everything hurts, but the meds help that a little. I don't know. I literally feel like I got hit by a car." A thought occurred to him, and he was surprised he hadn't thought about it before. "I probably look like complete hell, huh?"

"The red eyes are a little scary, but you look fine, considering."

Tommy groaned. He had forgotten about the eyes. "Worse than complete hell then."

Kwest laughed. "You have a lot of bandages, a big purple bruise on your forehead, and a very impressive black eye. Besides that and the eyes, you look okay."

"Oh God my _hair,_ " Tommy realized suddenly. "How much did they shave?"

"Some," Kwest said with amusement. "Less than I'd have thought, actually. Like maybe this much, from what I can see." He indicated a circle a few inches in diameter on the side of his head. "Your coif will survive, Little Tommy Q."

"Seriously?" Tommy said indignantly in response to the hated nickname. "You're calling me that, mocking me when I'm laying in intensive care? That's low, Kwest." Kwest laughed again, and so did Tommy, though he closed his eyes with a sigh when a wave of fatigue hit him seconds later.

"Should I let you sleep?" Kwest asked when he noticed.

"Nah, man," Tommy said, opening his eyes again. "All I've done is sleep. You flew all the way out here. I can hold out."

"How is Jude?" Kwest asked after a moment.

Tommy shrugged his right shoulder. "She's fine."

"They said they had to sedate her. I saw the video."

"I don't know, Kwest." He sounded irritated now. "I was unconscious. I don't remember any of it. She told me it's fine."

"Seriously, T, it was bad." Kwest frowned.

"She can deal." Tommy rolled his eyes, and Kwest knew then that he hadn't been imagining that something was weird between Jude and Tommy.

"What's going on with you two?" Kwest asked finally. "Obviously something's not right."

Tommy hesitated. He had told Adam about Jude's infidelity to explain the drinking, but now it seemed somehow like telling Kwest would make it real. "It's…" he started, but he couldn't bring himself to say 'nothing.' Because it wasn't nothing. Eventually he sighed, mumbling quietly, "She cheated on me."

"Wait, what?" Kwest's eyes widened. "Seriously?"

"Not the kind of joke I would tell."

"Shit, Jude had an affair? When? For how long? How did you find out?" Kwest still couldn't bring himself to believe it.

"A couple days ago. Not an affair, exactly. It only happened once, at least as far as I know. And I know because… she told me."

"She told you?"

"I knew something was up. She pulled an all-nighter at the studio, and then the next day she was acting… weird. Guilty, I guess…" he sighed and shut his eyes. "Last night she told me she slept with her artist."

"Last night?" Kwest looked confused. "When you were in the hospital?"

"No, man. Before that. She told me, I stormed out, I didn't look before I crossed the street, here we are."

 _"Damn,"_ Kwest said, rubbing a hand across his jaw. "But I mean, at least she told you. She admitted it, which means she regretted it. She didn't want to lie to you."

Anger flashed through him and he turned sharply to look at Kwest. "Are you actually taking her fucking side on this?"

"No, of course not. It's unforgivable," Kwest said quickly. "But… Are you really not going to forgive her?"

"I don't know!" Tommy cried and then groaned at the pain it caused.

"Okay, okay, Tommy. Take it easy." Kwest put a hand on Tommy's arm.

"I don't know what to do, Kwest." Tommy's voice cracked. He looked lost. "What would you do?"

"Honestly? I don't know." He sighed. "I had a girl cheat on me and I ended it no question, but it's not the same. The relationship wasn't serious. Not as serious… I mean, this is you and Jude we're talking about. You've been together for years, you had a kid."

"And if Caroline was still here then maybe I'd stay because of her, but now I don't know." Tommy looked devastated. "It's like, yeah, exactly, we had a kid together, so how could she… It makes it worse that me and Jude are… we were supposed to be together for the rest of our lives, man. This was supposed to be it, and she can't even…" Exhaustion and pain were clouding Tommy's head. "I don't know, okay? I don't know. Part of me wants to say she just made a mistake, and forget the whole thing. But part of me… she completely fucking betrayed me, Kwest. How am I ever supposed to trust her again?" Tommy was getting worked up, and the pain in his head was reaching the point of being unbearable. He reached for the button that delivered the morphine and pressed it.

"Take it easy, Tommy," Kwest said again, gently. "You gotta be careful. You're gonna hurt yourself."

Tommy relaxed into the pillows and shut his eyes with a sigh as he felt the effects of the morphine kick in. "Yeah, yeah. I'm good. Don't worry."

"Look, you don't need to make a decision right now, laying in the hospital right after freakin brain surgery. It's better if you don't. All you need to do right now is rest. But if you don't want her here, I can tell her to leave. Even if it's just for now."

"No." Tommy sighed again. "No, it's okay. She's… she can stay. I think I want her here." He let his eyes close again, thoroughly exhausted once more. His words slurred as he said, "Sorry, man. I don't know if I can stay awake. The drugs are intense."

"It's fine. Sleep. You've been through a lot, T," Kwest said with a sigh, putting a hand on Tommy's arm. "You'll get through this too."

"I guess so," Tommy murmured as he fell asleep again.

.

When she walked into Tommy's room, Jude saw on Kwest's face that he knew. It wasn't condemnation in his eyes so much as sorrow, but the pity for her was gone, and he wouldn't meet her eyes for longer than a second or two. "He's asleep?" she asked quietly, sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the room from Kwest.

Kwest nodded. "He talked to me a little, and he woke up when Sadie came in, but yeah. He said the meds knock him out."

"The doctor said he might be really tired because of the brain injury anyway." Jude sighed. Kwest gave a hum of acknowledgement, but looked down at the floor. She bit her lip for a moment, then said softly, "He told you." Kwest nodded, still not looking at her. She felt tears start to fill her eyes. "You probably hate me now."

Kwest looked up, raising his eyebrows slightly. "Hey, no, of course not."

"It's fine, I deserve it."

"I don't hate you," he insisted. "That's not my place, Jude. I'm not judging."

"Even if you don't hate me, he does," she whispered, looking down at Tommy.

Kwest shook his head. "He's angry, but he couldn't ever hate you."

"He should. I hate me." A few tears escaped her eyes and she wiped them away.

"What happened? I mean, why did you do it?" he asked gently. "I just… I thought you and T were good. I know it's been really rough the last few months, I can't even imagine, but through all of that I thought…"

"A lot of relationships don't survive losing a child," Jude murmured, looking down at the floor, barely moving her lips when she spoke.

"Is that why?" Kwest didn't look angry, just concerned. When she didn't answer, he said, "Sorry. It's none of my business."

"No, it's… it's okay." Jude looked back up at Kwest. "I think maybe it is why," she said honestly. "I mean, I look at Tommy, and I love him and I want to be with him, but I also just… I don't know. I see her. Caroline. I'm with Tommy and I remember what we lost. I guess I thought…" Jude shrugged. "I don't know what I thought."

"What happened?" Kwest asked gently. "If you don't mind me asking."

She hesitated for a long moment, but then answered, "My artist… He kissed me. It was late, Tommy and I had had this awful fight so I pulled an all nighter, partly to avoid him, I guess. Benjamin and I had been working on the song for hours, and we were drinking, and he kissed me and I… didn't feel grief. For that moment I wasn't missing my baby girl, I was just Jude the musician, the producer. Not the mother of a dead daughter. I can't be that with Tommy anymore." She was crying now, the tears pouring from her eyes again. "I guess I thought I wanted that. Maybe in that moment I thought that's who I wanted to be, and so I let myself get carried away. But I was wrong." She looked at Kwest, desperately. "I was wrong! All I want is Tommy. None of the rest of it matters. Even through all the painful stuff, I'd still rather be with him than anyone else, but I realized that too late, and now… I really, really messed up, Kwest."

He paused for a long moment, thinking, then said, "But then you told him what happened."

Jude nodded, wiping her cheeks with her sleeve. "Benjamin threatened to go to the tabloids, and I didn't want Tommy to find out that way, or to try and lie my way out of it. He and I made a promise a long time ago not to lie to each other anymore. Was that the wrong decision? Should I have lied? Would it have been kinder?"

He frowned. "I honestly don't know," he said after a moment.

"Do you think there's anything I can do to fix it?" she asked softly. Her eyes were focused on her hands in her lap and she didn't see that Tommy's eyes were open, that he'd heard what she said.

Kwest met Tommy's gaze and raised his eyebrows. "Well, Jude… he loves you. He's always gonna love you." Kwest said with a shrug, still looking at Tommy, who looked a little like he was going to cry. "I guess you have to hope it's enough." He looked back at Jude as Tommy pretended to be asleep again. "For what it's worth, I think it will be."


	24. Chapter 24

When she saw Benjamin's name on her caller ID, Jude almost didn't answer. At the last minute she picked up, snapping, "What do you want?" into the phone.

She heard him sigh. "Hey, Jude."

"Benjamin, I don't have time for this," she hissed, annoyed. "If you're going to sell the story, do it already. I don't care anymore. I'm hanging up."

"No, wait! I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I just heard. Is it true? Tom was in an accident?"

"Why? Figured this story would take attention away from yours?"

"What? God, no!" Benjamin insisted. "I'm not… I won't go to the tabloids. I was just hurt and angry, but you were right, it would be a bad decision. Is he okay?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but he had to have emergency brain surgery, and he's still in intensive care. But yes. He's okay."

"Are _you_ okay?" he asked gently.

"I'm fine," she snapped.

"There's a video…"

"Don't you dare bring up that fucking video," Jude practically growled at him. "That was none of anyone's business. The fact that you even watched it is a _huge_ violation of my privacy."

"I was just concerned!" He sounded defensive.

"Well, don't be!"

"You love him," Benjamin said quietly. "I get it now."

"Of course I love him!" Jude cried. "What did you think?"

"I didn't understand. I knew… I thought you were unhappy. Maybe I convinced myself it was because of him." She gave an exasperated sigh and he continued quickly, "I was wrong, and I crossed a line, and I'm sorry."

Jude shut her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Fine. I accept your apology. We made a mistake, and I am paying for it."

"I meant it when I said he doesn't need to know."

"Benjamin!" Jude protested, and he hastened to clarify.

"No ultimatums this time, I swear. I still think we should keep working together, but even if you don't agree, I… I promise I won't tell anyone. I'm sorry I tried to–"

"He already knows! I told you, I don't lie to him. I told him what happened."

"And he forgave you?"

"He got hit by a car." Jude felt tears in her eyes again.

"I don't see how that's rel–"

"I'm hanging up, Benjamin," she snapped. "Don't call me again. I already told you, we don't talk any more." She hung up the phone in the middle of his apology.

… ... … ... …

Recovery was hell.

The first couple of days Tommy spent in and out of consciousness as doctors and nurses constantly came in to wake him from sleep that somehow never reached the point of being restful. They would poke and prod and measure and ask inane questions, and then a couple of hours later, seemingly the minute he was finally getting some real rest, they would come back and the cycle would repeat again. All the while Jude sat in the corner with tears in her eyes that alternately made him furious at her or broke his heart.

Being constantly in and out of consciousness was beyond disorienting. After a certain point he was having trouble telling dreaming from waking. He didn't know, for example, if Kwest and Sadie's whispered argument had really ended in a kiss, or if that was as much a dream as Benjamin, dressed in scrubs, entering his hospital room and attempting to smother him with a pillow.

The visitors blurred together. They came in a couple at a time, and he put varying levels of effort into holding conversations with them. Sadie, Adam, Emily, Nora… Part of him was embarrassed that people were seeing him like this, but mostly he was too tired and out of it to care. Sometimes Kwest sat by his bed through the night, and he was there during the few times when Sadie convinced Jude to get some rest or go to the cafeteria for food. Tommy was never alone, though, as far as he could tell. He wasn't sure whether or not he was grateful for that.

Everything was permeated by a constant awareness of pain. Pain in his head, in his leg, in his ribs, but in a thousand other places too. Muscles he hadn't even known he had felt torn. The medication took away some of the sharpness, but it couldn't kill the pain completely, and with it came a constant, pervasive nausea he could feel in his teeth. No one had warned him about that, just as no one had warned him about the popping sounds he heard inside his head. The first time that happened, he'd panicked, thinking something was rupturing or exploding, or at the very least that he was hallucinating. The nurse explained calmly that the sounds were caused by small amounts of air left inside his skull, that it was normal, and that it would go away in a few days. Something about that, about air _inside_ his head, seemed deeply wrong to Tommy, but then again, what about this wasn't deeply wrong?

When he was just a certain level of incoherent from pain and medication and fatigue, he started to blame Jude for it all. He thought (though he couldn't be completely sure how much really happened the way he remembered it) that at one point he'd started shouting that she'd done this to him, that if she wasn't such a whore none of this would ever have happened. He was pretty sure that one was real, since he remembered Jude's tears with too sharp a sense of guilt, and she had been missing through several of the times a nurse had roused him to shine the piercingly painful light into his eyes.

Jude only came back after a dream of her laying in a hospital bed, cold and still with blue-tinged lips, had caused him to awake in a panic, screaming her name as loudly as his broken body would allow. Kwest had rushed to get her, and she appeared a moment later, never having gone very far. She'd placed a cool hand on the side of his face and soothed him. Her wide eyes were hopelessly bloodshot, the dark circles under them making her look like she hadn't slept in weeks, but he had finally been able to breathe again as she said the words, "Tommy, I'm here. It's okay, I'm right here."

As time went on, he spent more and more time lucid. At one point, in what he thought was the third day, they had him sit up in bed, and though the dizziness almost knocked him out and his head pounded so hard he almost threw up, everyone congratulated him and treated it like it was a huge accomplishment. He wondered if this was going to be his life now: celebrating curling his fingers or sitting up for thirty seconds.

The fourth day, he was moved from the ICU and into somewhere the nurse called a "step-down ward". Some of the tubes were removed, including the catheter, _thank God_ , though someone always had to help him when he had to go to the toilet, since he was still extremely weak, and neither of his legs were working properly. When they thought the swelling had gone down enough, he was taken back into surgery to fix the fractured right leg bones, placing pins to hold them. He was surprised to find that the surgery actually lessened the pain in his leg, rather than increasing it.

After the leg surgery, after he'd woken from the anesthesia and they moved him out of the recovery room, Tristan called back, having returned home to where he had cell reception. He sounded panicked, and Tommy mentally cursed Jude for dragging his little brother into this. "Tris, I swear, I'm fine," Tommy insisted, though he sounded feeble and exhausted even to his own ears.

"I'm coming out there. I'll get time off, I'll find the money–"

 _"No,"_ Tommy said emphatically. "I'm okay, really."

"You had brain surgery and I didn't even know about it!"

"Well, it's not like I planned it, Tristan. What am I supposed to have done?"

"Not almost get yourself killed!"

"I'm _fine,"_ he groaned. "Jude shouldn't have worried you."

"Would you have even told me if she hadn't?"

"Of course." His head started to pound again. The pain must have shown in his expression, because Jude looked at him, concerned, gesturing for him to give her the phone. He shot her a glare that said _stay out of it._ She recoiled and sat down, watching him and chewing nervously on what was left of her already bitten nails.

"Like you told me about your daughter?" Tristan sounded hurt. Tommy sighed. He had planned to tell his brother about Caroline's death after the funeral, but that had been enough time for Tristan to see the news online first. "For fuck's sake, Tom," Tristan continued, "I get it. You left when I was nine and you basically never came home again. We didn't talk for years, now I hear from you _maybe_ once a year, and that's fine, whatever. We're not close and we're never going to be. But look, mom's gone, and you're my _brother._ I shouldn't have to read about this shit in the tabloids. It's fucked up. We're family."

"I get it, Tristan." He spoke softly. "I'm sorry. But really, I'm okay. I don't want you to have to worry about coming all the way here. Please don't. It's not necessary."

"Then you have to keep me updated. I'm not asking you to call every day or anything, but I need to know what's going on."

"Yeah, of course. But I'm fine. Really." Despite the words, Tommy was struggling to keep holding the phone to his head. All he wanted was to go back to sleep. Jude stood up again, hovering over him, but he ignored her.

"Don't scare me like that, okay?" Tristan said.

"I'm sorry," Tommy murmured.

"It's okay. Just feel better, yes?"

"Yes." It came out in a tired sigh.

"Get some sleep, Tom. You sound like you need it."

All Tommy could manage that time was a "hmm" and Jude said his name urgently, trying to get him to hand her the phone. He frowned at her again and said, "Yeah, I should go."

"Sure," Tristan said. "Hey, I… I love you." He mumbled the words, sounding very uncomfortable, but Tommy knew he meant it. The image came to his mind of his brother as a freckle-faced little kid, staring up at him with big brown eyes.

"Yeah. I love you too, Tris."

As Tommy hung up and silently handed her the phone, Jude felt a pang of sorrow. She had never heard him say that to anyone but her. Her and Caroline.

She couldn't help but think she might never hear him say it again.


	25. Chapter 25

"Come on, little sis, you need to sleep," Sadie said softly. "I'll stay with him while Kwest isn't here, if the reason you're not leaving is because you don't want him to be alone, but you _have_ to get some sleep."

"I sleep," Jude murmured. "I slept for a few hours last night."

"I mean in a real bed, Jude," she sighed. "It's been almost five days, and you haven't left here for more than a couple hours. You're exhausted. You need to get some real food, and some real sleep. He's still going to be here in the morning when you come back."

"But what if he isn't, Sadie?!" Jude's eyes were wide and scared.

"Oh, sweetie, no. You can't think like that." Sadie looked sad. "Besides, you heard the doctor. He's doing a lot better. He's out of intensive care, they said he's going to start physical therapy soon… He's okay. He's out of the woods."

"They said she was okay, too!" Jude cried, too loudly.

Sadie winced. "It's not like that. The doctors check on him every few hours, they've been doing all those tests and scans… if they say he's doing better, it's because he's doing better. Besides, the hotel is right across the street, you could be here in two minutes if you needed to. I promise I'll call if there's anything you need to know."

"I can't!" Jude's voice was rising in pitch, becoming increasingly hysterical. "What if he's not fine? What if he needs me?" Sadie put her hands on Jude's shoulders, trying to calm her down, but Jude was crying now. "What if I leave and he– I can't! Every time I close my eyes I see him _die,_ Sadie! Or I see her… This is all my fault. It's all my fault! If anything happens–"

"Jude," Tommy's voice came from the bed, snapping her out of her increasing panic. He sounded groggy, but insistent.

"Tommy! I'm sorry!" Jude said quickly, hastily wiping her tears. "I didn't mean to wake you. Please, go back to sleep. I'll shut up."

"It's fine," Tommy said quietly. He was frowning, but it looked like concern in his expression, not anger, though the bruises and the shadows made it hard to tell. "Come here for a second." He grabbed the remote for the bed and raised the head of it about a foot, gesturing for her to sit on the edge of the bed.

She sat. "What? What is it?" she asked, worried. Even in the dimness of the room, the blue of his irises was striking in contrast to the bloody red color surrounding them. That was going away at the edges of his eyes, she noticed, the white coming back slowly but surely.

He spoke softly, so only Jude could hear. "I know I'm probably one to talk, but you look like shit, Harrison." Jude looked taken aback, and Tommy sighed. "I'm not saying that to be cruel, I'm saying it because Sadie is right. Go get some sleep, go eat something… You need to take care of yourself."

"I'm fine, Tommy. I swear, I'm alright."

"I know you're scared, Jude," he said, more gently than he'd spoken to her since she told him what she'd done. "I know that you feel guilty." He raised an eyebrow and added, "And you probably should. But, again, you need to take care of _yourself_ , too."

"I'm fine," she insisted, again.

"Hey," he said, gently, grabbing her hand and squeezing it weakly. _"I_ need you to, okay? I have enough to worry about without also worrying about you. Listen to your sister, girl. Please." His tenderness made her start to cry again. He looked very sad, and reached his shaky hand up to brush away some of the tears. "Don't cry, Jude. Hey, come on. I'm okay. I promise."

She nodded, sniffling. "I can't even begin tell you how sorry I am, Tommy."

"Don't." He frowned again. "I can't right now. Just please promise me you will go get some real sleep, and some real food."

"Okay. I will." She nodded again. "I promise."

His face relaxed. "Good."

"I'll see you in the morning, then," she said gently. She reached out a hand, meaning to touch his face, but pulled it back. She wanted to kiss him, to tell him she loved him, but she wasn't sure where the line was, so she just squeezed his hand before standing up.

"Wait," Tommy said softly as she started to turn away. She turned back to him, sitting back down, looking expectantly at him. "I…" He hesitated. "You can…" He frowned, looking conflicted, and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. When he opened them again he looked vulnerable, even a little frightened, just for a second. He hesitated for another few seconds, then softly said, "kiss me?" Jude's heart squeezed, and tears pricked at her eyes again. She put a hand on the side of his face and leaned down, careful to avoid hurting his broken ribs, and pressed her lips softly to his. He put a hand on her cheek, too, holding her there for a moment, their foreheads pressed together. "Jude, I…" he started to whisper, but trailed off with a sigh. He removed his hand, turning his face away slightly.

She sat up, cold air rushing in in her absence, and reluctantly pulled her hand back. His expression was conflicted again. "Tommy, I really am so sor–"

He cut her off, saying, "No," softly. He couldn't deal with apologies right now, when he couldn't figure out how to even begin to forgive her. All he wanted, more than anything, was for none of it to have happened. But, failing that, he just wanted to pretend for a second that she was still his Jude, that he still believed their love could survive anything.

She nodded. "Okay." Another tear slipped from her eye and she brushed it away. "But I love you." Pain flashed across his face, but she continued, speaking in an urgent whisper. "You need to know that. No matter what."

He looked upset. "I… I do know that, and I… I just…" He put his hand up to his head, clenching it into a fist and pushing it against the center of his forehead. "I can't… You…" He trailed off and sighed, relaxing his hand. "Please just go. Get some sleep. Can you do that?"

"Yeah, okay." Jude looked at him for one more long moment before squeezing his hand again and standing up. She turned back to Sadie, who had been pointedly looking down at her phone to avoid intruding on their sudden private moment. "Do you have the room key, Sade?"

Sadie looked surprised and relieved. "Yeah." She retrieved it from her purse and asked, "Do you want me to come with you?"

Jude shook her head and asked softly, "Can you please stay with him?"

"Of course." Sadie nodded and handed her the key card. "Room 416." She stood up and gave Jude a tight hug. "I'll see you in the morning. Love you." She gave Jude a kiss on the cheek.

"Love you too," Jude sighed, and left.

When she was gone, Sadie said, "Thank you."

Tommy didn't answer for a moment, and she thought maybe he was asleep, but then he said, "I know how to handle Jude." It wasn't exactly a kind thing to say, and he felt a little guilty for it, but he didn't know how to reconcile his anger at Jude with his concern.

"Oh, was that what you were doing?" Sadie asked, wryly. Tommy didn't answer, and after a moment she said gently, "She made a mistake, Tom."

"Sadie, don't." He was too tired to say it as sharply as he wanted.

"She loves you."

He looked at her with a scowl. "I don't care," he snapped. It was a lie. "It doesn't make what she did okay."

Sadie felt a surge of anger. "That's rich, coming from you."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

 _Sadie, you can't fight with a man laying in a hospital bed,_ she chastised herself. Her voice was gentler when she continued, "You know what it means."

"I cannot believe we're still having this conversation. It was years ago! I _did not_ cheat on you, Sadie. Besides, you still broke up with me anyway, remember?"

"It's not about us!" she protested. "We had bigger problems than whether you did or did not sleep with some model. Namely the fact that you were in love with my little sister. No, this is in no way about you and me."

"Then what the hell is it about?"

"It's about the fact that she's given you so many second chances I've lost count!"

"I never slept with someone else!" he said as harshly as he could muster. "I would never!"

He was struggling to sit up, and Sadie realized she'd gone too far. "Tommy, wait, just relax. I'm sorry." She stood up and went to the bed. "Hey, it's alright, calm down."

Tommy wished desperately that they hadn't taken him off of the patient-controlled morphine pump. He laid back again and tried to relax, breathing as deeply as he could without hurting his ribs too much. "You're telling me I don't have the right to be angry at her?"

"Sure you do. Of course you do. I'm saying you can't stay angry at her forever."

Tommy groaned. "Just let me sleep, Sadie."

"She deserves your forgiveness, Tom," Sadie said softly as she moved back to the chair.

He closed his eyes and, too quietly for Sadie to hear, he whispered, "I'm trying."


	26. Chapter 26

**A/N:** To my anonymous reviewer: I think maybe I live for the Jude/Tommy interactions _especially_ when they're really short and heartbreaking. (That said, this is not a Jommy chapter, but please don't let that make you stop reading!)

* * *

Sadie stayed, as she'd promised Jude she would, until Kwest came in the morning. She woke up when he walked in, and he looked surprised to see her there. He spoke softly so as to not wake Tommy. "Sadie, hey. Have you been here all night?"

Sadie nodded and stretched. "I promised Jude I'd stay. It was the only way I could get her to leave and get some sleep. She still feels like the second she leaves him alone…"

"Yeah," Kwest sighed. "I get it. But you did convince her?"

"Tommy did, actually." She looked at Tommy, who was still sleeping, and sighed. "He cares, but he still wants to pretend he doesn't."

"I guess it hurts less that way," Kwest said quietly.

"He's just not ready to forgive her."

"Can you blame him?" Kwest asked, frowning. "After what she did?"

Sadie pressed her lips into a hard line. "She made a mistake, Kwest. After what she's been through…"

"And what _he's_ been through," he retorted, raising an eyebrow. "Tommy lost his daughter too, Sadie."

"You don't understand. Jude–"

"I do understand. She talked to me too. She told me what happened, and I get it. But what I'm saying is that you can't expect him to just let it go because she's grieving. It may be an explanation, but it isn't an excuse."

"She's trying so hard!" Sadie protested.

"Well, maybe it's not enough."

"Guys," came Tommy's voice from the bed. "The whisper-fighting is getting old."

They both turned to him in surprise, and Sadie said, "Sorry, Tommy. Did we wake you?"

"No." He grimaced. "Pain did."

Kwest said, "I'll see if I can get a nurse," and left the room.

"Jude?" Tommy asked as he looked around and realized she was missing.

"Hopefully she's still sleeping," Sadie said.

"Yeah? What time is it?"

"It's after nine, but I'm not going to be the one to wake her. She needs the sleep."

"That's good," he said softly, then asked, "So what's the fighting about anyway?" He frowned. "Us? Me and Jude?"

"We're not fighting," she sighed. "But yes. You, mostly."

He looked angry now. "Let me guess, you're on her side?"

"Well, first of all, she's my sister, Tommy. But I'm not on anyone's _side_. There aren't sides to be taken. I just want you both to be happy."

"Whatever." Tommy rolled his eyes. After a beat he said, "So it's all about us, nothing about you?"

Sadie raised her eyebrows. "What are you getting at?"

"He kissed you," Tommy said quietly. "Or did I dream that?"

She looked startled. "You saw that?"

Tommy didn't get a chance to respond, because Kwest came back in with a nurse. She administered Tommy's dose of painkillers, then checked the monitors and made some notes in the chart. As she changed the bandages on the incision, making conversation with Tommy, Kwest quietly said, "We should talk," to Sadie.

She was surprised, but his expression was serious, so she nodded. "Okay. But let me wait until Jude wakes up, okay? She made me promise not to leave him alone."

Kwest nodded, and they waited until Jude texted Sadie that she was on her way over. Kwest said, "Hey, T, we'll be back, okay?" Tommy gave him a questioning look, but Kwest just shook his head slightly. He walked with Sadie down to the cafeteria, where they both got coffee and sat down opposite one another at a booth in the corner of the room. She looked at him expectantly, raising an eyebrow, and he sighed and said, "He's right about the fighting."

Sadie pursed her lips. "You can't be mad at me for defending my little sister, Kwest. I get that Tommy is your best friend, but Jude is my _sister_ and I'm going to keep defending her. I get that she messed up, big time, and I'm not saying cheating is okay, but she's going through a lot and someone has to be on her side."

Kwest frowned. "First of all, we're here because Tommy almost died, and you want to talk about _Jude_ going through a lot and needing someone on _her_ side?"

Sadie laughed once and shook her head, muttering, "God, I forgot about this."

Kwest had been prepared to launch into a speech about taking sides, but he stopped, confused. "Forgot about what?"

"About you." She gestured to him and smiled wryly. "Always so… loyal. It's… I just forgot what this used to be like. Practically no matter what Tommy did to you, or to me, or to anyone else, you'd defend him." He frowned, and Sadie tried to clarify. "Kwest, it's not a bad thing. You're a great guy, a great friend. It's sweet." She reached out and put a hand over his where it rested on the table, brushing her thumb over his knuckles before pulling back and frowning. "But I think in all that loyalty you're forgetting Tommy's no saint either. He cheated on Portia. He cheated on _me_."

"Years ago," Kwest argued. "And never with Jude."

"So?" she scoffed. "There are other ways to hurt someone. My sister was _sixteen_ the first time he broke her heart. The _first_ time. Then there's the time he left for God knows where with no warning and no explanation, the awful stuff he said to her at her 18th birthday party… And you saw her when she came back from New Brunswick, Kwest. He broke her."

"And you saw _him_ after she left for London," he countered.

"That was the right thing to do," Sadie snapped. "She was 18! She wasn't ready to be engaged!"

"I know that. I'm not saying–" he tried to clarify, but he'd made Sadie angry now, and she cut him off.

"And you can pretend that all of that stuff he did to her in Toronto was years ago so everything is different, but what about when he found out she was pregnant? He left then, too, and she could've died!"

"You're seriously blaming him for a crazy stalker with a knife?"

Sadie sighed. "Okay, no. Not that part."

"So you're rooting for them to fail, now?"

"No," she insisted. "Of course not."

"You've decided their relationship is unsalvageable, that Tommy is such an awful person that Jude, what? Had no choice but to hook up with someone else?"

"No!" she protested. "Kwest!"

"You defending your sister isn't the problem, Sadie." He shook his head. _"This_ is the problem. The whole idea of _sides_ is the problem. You need to stop being the high school debate champion here, the head of PR. Stop trying to _spin_ this. There's no one you need to convince, and T isn't the enemy. You don't need to protect her from him, or from me. Neither of us is trying to hurt her." He sighed, and spoke less heatedly. "We shouldn't be talking about taking sides. There shouldn't even _be_ sides. I want them both to be happy, don't you?"

"Of course I do." She looked hurt. "Obviously! I just said that exact thing to Tommy! 'There aren't sides to be taken, I want both of you to be happy.'"

"Then why do you feel like you have to be so defensive?"

"Because she's my baby sister!" Sadie cried. She put her hands to her head and shut her eyes, her expression pained. Her voice came out soft and strained. "Did you see her face? When he called her a whore?" She looked back at him, dropping her hands. "Did you see her face, Kwest?"

"I saw," he sighed. "But that–"

"Wasn't his fault, I know," she finished. "It's not that I blame him. I know he's in a lot of pain, I get that. I know he didn't mean to say it and he didn't want to hurt her. I _know_ Tommy isn't the enemy. But the guilt is killing her. I can see it. Not only is she terrified that at any minute she could lose him like they lost Caroline, she's terrified that he's never going to forgive her. She can't forgive herself." Sadie's voice faltered a little, her eyes filling with tears. "So I'm not trying to make Tommy the villain, and I don't think either of you are trying to hurt her. It's not that. I'm just trying to make sure she knows that someone forgives her." Sadie reached up to wipe her tears as they started to fall. "She needs that. I know he almost died, and I know she messed up and he has a right to be angry, and I know he lost his daughter too, but you saw her on that video, and you saw her face when he screamed at her, and you know Jude too, so you know how deeply she feels things. She's gonna tear herself apart over this, Kwest." More tears escaped her eyes, and she stopped trying to wipe them away. "All I want is to be a good big sister and protect her. I did a horrible job of that when we were younger, and I just–" her voice cracked, and she dissolved into tears.

Kwest got up and wordlessly moved to her side of the table, sitting next to her in the booth and wrapping an arm around her. She leaned into him and let herself cry into his shoulder for a minute. "It's okay, Sadie. You're okay," he said softly, rubbing her back.

She took a deep breath and straightened up. "God, I'm sorry." She sniffled, wiping her eyes. "I'm just so tired." She laughed a little, through the tears. "I feel like I haven't slept in days. I guess it just sort of hit me."

"I get it, it's alright. I didn't mean to make you so upset."

"It's okay." She wiped her eyes again and sighed. "I didn't mean to vilify Tommy. My intention honestly wasn't to play spin doctor and make a list of his flaws and mistakes. I care about Tommy too. You know I do. And despite all of the BS and the drama that they've put each other through, I _am_ rooting for their relationship. I know he loves her. I know he's good to her. Maybe even good _for_ her."

"And I know she just made a mistake. I understand why it happened. But I can't push him to forgive her. He needs to decide to do that on his own. I'm on Jude's side, I am, but I have to be on Tommy's too. The guy's like my brother." He sighed. "He's done a lot of stuff, been a lot of people he's not proud of. But he really has changed."

"I know that."

"So that's all I'm saying," Kwest continued. "It's not two sides, Tommy against Jude. It's T _and_ Jude against all of the shit that's trying to keep them apart. I just wanted to remind you that you don't have to be against him to be on her side." Sadie nodded, and he reached out to wipe the rest of the tears from her cheeks, letting his hand rest on the side of her face and quietly saying, "And I don't like fighting with you."

Sadie felt her breath catch a little, her heart fluttering at the closeness of him and the look in his eyes. The kiss the other day had come out of nowhere, in the middle of an argument, born of frustration and stress and exhaustion, emotions running too high. She was pretty sure half the reason he'd kissed her was just to shut her up. He'd just grabbed her face out of nowhere and pulled her to him. The kiss was passionate, but short, both of them pulling back after a few seconds. He'd quickly removed his fingers from her hair and stepped back, looking down at the floor and breathing, "Sorry." She'd cleared her throat and said, "Yeah," and he'd made an excuse about needing to make a work call. When she saw him later, they'd both pretended nothing had happened.

It was strange, these feelings for Kwest that were all coming back recently. It wasn't like she'd never gotten over him, because she had. She never thought of him as "the one who got away" and she didn't spend her time wondering what if. She'd been sad about ending things between them, and she felt guilty for hurting him, but she hadn't ever actually regretted the breakup, which had been the right decision for her at the time. They'd rebuilt a friendship over the years, and it was good. There was no lingering touch of romance between them, even after she'd broken up with Darius. Kwest had dated other people since, and so had she, and there hadn't even been a twinge of jealousy, at least on her part.

The first time she'd felt a glimmer of feelings for him again was Jamie and Zeppelin's wedding. Wally's girlfriend had caught the bouquet, prompting Kyle to laugh and nudge him in the ribs with an elbow, and the memory of catching the bouquet at Spied and Karma's wedding sent a wave of nostalgia through her. She'd caught Kwest's eye across the room, and he gave her a little, sad smile that she'd known meant he was remembering too. Her chest had ached for a second, but then it was gone and that was all it was. Just a quick twinge of missing him. That night in her apartment, she'd put on a playlist of music that reminded her of Kwest. She sat with a bottle of wine and looked through a box of stuff from that time in her life—including photographs, trinkets from dates they'd been on, souvenirs from their week in Mexico—and she'd let herself miss it, miss him. It had just been a temporary indulgence of the nostalgia, no big deal, and it hadn't happened again until they'd been in London after Caroline was born.

Maybe it was because of the baby and the fact that her little sister was somehow starting a family while Sadie was still very single, or maybe because Jude and Tommy were so obviously, sickeningly in love, but the pangs of nostalgia for her relationship with Kwest kept getting stronger. And then it wasn't just nostalgia anymore. She'd found herself thinking about him strangely often, occasionally feeling a little tingle of electricity when he touched her, looking at him and thinking about what it would feel like to kiss him. All of that had faded away again as they'd gone back to their everyday lives in Toronto.

When Jude had called her as they brought Caroline to the hospital, she'd called Kwest at Tommy's request, and he'd come straight over to her apartment, making tea and sitting with her. They talked about music, about NBR and G Major and their respective jobs, about TV shows, anything that would keep their minds off of worrying. When Jude had called back a few hours later, first whispering, then sobbing, "she's gone, Sadie. Sadie, she's dead! She's gone!" Kwest had held her hand as she tried her best to soothe her sister. After Jude hung up, Sadie rushed around making travel arrangements. It hadn't hit her, didn't feel real until hours later, when Kwest was about to leave. She started to shake and Kwest saw her unravelling. He led her back to the couch and pulled her into his arms, saying in his soothing baritone, "Let go, Sadie. It's okay. You can let go. I'm here." He'd rubbed her back in soothing circles as she let herself cry until his shirt was soaked. She'd returned the favor on their third night in London, when an exhausted and emotionally wrung-out Kwest had started to cry silently during a cab ride to their hotel. Sadie hadn't said anything, knowing that would make it worse, but she slipped her hand into his and squeezed his fingers.

It was that, the vulnerability and the emotional support, that had really done it. Even when they'd gone back to Toronto and resumed their normal lives, she found herself thinking about him all the time, texting and even calling him just to talk. She was pretty sure she'd burned this bridge once and for all years ago, so she hadn't expected anything from it, but now they were sitting in a hospital cafeteria and his lips were inches from hers, his thumb lightly brushing across her cheek, and she thought maybe he was about to kiss her again. His gaze flickered to her lips before he cleared his throat and dropped his hand. "Anyway. That's all I wanted to say." He stood up and grabbed his coffee.

"I get it," she said, trying not to let on that he'd flustered her. "No more fighting. I can defend Jude without blaming Tommy. It's what I was always trying to do."

"They're adults. They have to work it out on their own. We can't fight their battles for them. But he loves her. I think he can get past this."

"I agree." Sadie nodded, standing up from the table.

When they were outside Tommy's room, Kwest said her name softly. When she turned to him, he looked at her with a sincerity that made her heart flutter again and said, "You _are_ a good sister, you know? A great one. You always have been. I'm serious. Jude's lucky to have you."

Sadie flushed and looked down. "Thanks, Kwest." She looked back up at him. "You're a great friend. And a really really good guy." She hesitated for a second, then placed a hand on the side of his face and leaned in, standing on her toes and kissing him on the cheek before walking into the hospital room.


	27. Chapter 27

A/N: This chapter is short, and it sort of tags onto the previous chapter, so I'm posting it now. (So many updates this week!)

* * *

Jude had to admit she did feel a lot better after getting some sleep. She had intended to sleep for six hours, maybe eight, but she found she was more exhausted than she'd thought. She didn't wake up for over eleven hours, sleeping straight through her alarm. When she texted Sadie that she was on her way, Sadie replied that Tommy was awake and doing well. When Jude entered his hospital room—showered, rested, and with makeup on for the first time in days—he was sitting up fully in bed, without even the bed up to support his back. He actually smiled when he saw her, though he seemed to quickly stifle it.

"You're sitting up," Jude said, surprised.

"Miracle of miracles," Tommy replied wryly, rolling his eyes.

Jude shrugged. "It's progress. Where's Sadie?"

"You just missed her."

"She left?" Jude felt a twinge of anger. She had asked that her sister stay with Tommy until she or Kwest got back.

He shook his head. "Kwest wanted to talk to her. She waited until you texted to say you were awake."

"He wanted to talk to her alone?" Jude frowned a little at that. Was there something going on there that she was missing?

Tommy shrugged. "They've been having these whispered arguments in the corner of the room for days. I think he…" He trailed off and shook his head. "I don't know. But at least it means someone thinks I'm well enough to leave me alone for two minutes. You look better, by the way. You look good." He sighed and then added, muttering, "Better than I do, I'm sure."

"I feel better," she admitted. "And you look fine, babe."

He winced slightly at the term of endearment, but didn't comment, instead changing the subject. "I have my first session of physical therapy in a few hours."

"Really? That soon? That's awesome!" she exclaimed.

He scowled. "It's awful, actually. Everything fucking _hurts_ , and I'm pretty sure the goal of PT is to make it hurt even more."

"It's progress, though," Jude said again.

"Don't," he warned. "Don't do that. I don't need you to try to put a positive spin on this situation. It's not helpful, it's annoying." He scowled at her.

She sighed and sat in the chair beside his bed. "I did my makeup this morning," she said softly, more to herself than to him. Tommy looked confused at the non-sequitur. She muttered, "so I can't let you make me cry today."

Tommy rolled his eyes, mostly to hide his guilt. "You've got a thicker skin than that, Harrison."

"Not lately," she said quietly, looking down at her hands. "And not when it comes to you." She looked back up at him and shrugged. "But you're right. It's fine. You're in pain, you're dealing with all of this, I majorly screwed up… I can handle being your punching bag if it's what you need to do."

He looked offended. "I'm not–"

She put up a hand. "It's fine." She sighed again and ran a hand through her still-damp hair. "You smiled at me when I walked in," she said quietly.

"Moment of weakness," he snapped. She didn't reply, just shook her head, and they both sat in guilty silence for a minute before Tommy said, "Jude, I need a favor." He spoke gently.

She looked up. "Of course. Anything."

"Go in to work."

"What?" His request shocked her. "Why? Tommy, I don't want…" _I don't want to risk seeing him again._

"Believe me, I'm not thrilled about the idea you might run into _him,_ " he snapped, reading her mind. "But even though you finished the single you were producing, I didn't finish mine. I need you to finish it for me. They have a lot riding on this song, and I don't know when I'll be able to get back into the studio."

"You trust me to do that? To finish your work?"

He clenched his jaw. "If I had a choice, I'd do it myself, and if it wasn't you, it would be another producer anyway." She looked hurt, though she tried to hide it, so he said, "Yes, Jude, of course I trust you to finish my work. Your musical abilities are just about the only thing I still trust you with, but I do still trust that."

"I guess that's fair. I can keep you in the loop, sneak out the recording on a flash drive or something, let you give your opinion."

He grimaced. "I had brain surgery less than a week ago. Derek screaming gives me a headache on a good day. There's not enough morphine in the world. Go ahead and take creative control. Just don't mess it up. You owe me that."

She pursed her lips. "Fine. I'll go in tomorrow."

"I think you should go this afternoon, at least to talk to Nora."

"Oh. I thought you said you had PT?"

He frowned. "Yes, and?"

"I just… I thought…"

Tommy scoffed. "You actually think I want you there?"

Jude felt tears pricking at her eyes again, and it made her angry. "Tommy, if you don't want me here, you should just tell me to leave."

He sighed, looking guilty. "That's not what I meant. Jude, I don't want anyone there for the physical therapy. I hate…" He furrowed his eyebrows, looking frustrated. "I hate that anyone is seeing me like this, okay? Maybe especially you. I didn't mean to…" He reached his hand out towards her, then dropped it.

Her eyes were wide. "If you want me gone, I'll go. I know what I did was terrible, and if you never want to see me again, I'd understand that." Despite her best efforts, the tears escaped her eyes. "But I need to know."

"Hey," Tommy said softly. "Come here." She did as he asked, standing by the bed, and he grabbed her hand lightly. "You think I don't want you here?" he asked gently.

She carefully wiped her tears and sat on the edge of the bed. "Well, the screaming at me, the calling me a whore… Yes, that's what I think."

"That wasn't… I was completely out of it when I said that, Jude. I'm in a lot of pain, I'm… I needed to blame someone. I shouldn't have said it, it was way out of line, and I feel awful, okay? I didn't do it on purpose."

"I get it, Tommy. I told you, I can handle it. I probably even deserve it. I just need to know if I should stay or if I'm just making things worse."

He looked very sad, and he put a hand on the side of her face. His voice was barely a whisper. "What if I don't know either?" He leaned in and and kissed her softly. "Part of me wants this," he murmured.

"All of me wants this," was her whispered reply.

He pulled back at that, frowning. "If that were true you wouldn't have slept with someone else."

"I would give anything to go back and change that," she protested.

"Yeah, well, you can't," Tommy snapped.

She turned away from him and hung her head. They sat in hurt and guilty silence for a long time before Jude said, "What do you still have left to do on the song?" and Tommy answered, relieved to be back on the relatively neutral ground of discussing music.


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N:** to my guest reviewer: I didn't cut it, but it wasn't a full scene, so I can see how you could've missed it if you weren't reading super carefully. It's a couple paragraphs in the middle of chapter 24 (beginning "when he was just a certain level of incoherent.") The Kwest and Sadie kiss happens in that block of text as well, and both of those things are fairly major in that they come up multiple times after they're initially mentioned. Sorry about that, I imagine missing those couple paragraphs made the last few chapters a bit confusing!

Anyway, while I'm here, I will take this opportunity to remind everyone that this story is rated M for a reason.

* * *

Jude wanted to be excited the day Tommy finally got to come home from the hospital, but all she could bring herself to feel was worried. She couldn't help but feel that if he was going to leave her, now would be the time he'd choose to do it. In the hospital, with Kwest and Sadie and the nurses and doctors, there was a buffer between them. Now Kwest and Sadie were leaving, and it would be just the two of them, alone in their apartment. In the hospital they'd been doing okay, relatively speaking. They talked, even laughed together sometimes. There had been a few times where he'd smiled at her and it felt like it used to before she messed everything up. But she could tell he was still angry at her, that he still couldn't decide whether he could forgive her. She couldn't really blame him for that, but it still scared her deeply.

When she confessed her fears to Sadie, she'd pulled Jude into a hug and said, "He loves you, okay? He's still angry, but he knows you're sorry, he understands that you made a mistake… You guys are going to be okay."

Jude tried to believe that, but the intensity of the anger and hurt she still often saw in Tommy's face made her doubt.

Kwest and Sadie came back with them, to help them settle in, but they left after dinner to head to the airport. Almost instantly after their goodbyes were said and the door closed behind them, Jude could feel all the tension rush back between her and Tommy. She found herself full of nervous energy, fidgeting with her star ring and watching him as he sat on the couch, trying and failing to find something to say. When he sighed heavily, putting his head in his hand, she asked, "You okay?"

He looked up and nodded wearily. "Just tired."

"Big day," she said. It wasn't even dark yet, but he looked completely exhausted, so after a moment she asked, "Do you want to go to bed?"

Tommy's jaw clenched. Jude knew the reason for the irritation—with the cast and the left-side weakness, she was going to need to help him with some of the everyday tasks, at least for the next couple of weeks. He took a deep breath and nodded.

As she helped him get ready for bed, she could tell he was fighting really hard to suppress his frustration and irritation. He did a good job of it, only snapping at her once, when she tried to help him in the bathroom. He changed shirts himself without too much trouble, but fumbled one-handed with the button on his jeans until Jude reached out and helped him. She tried to ignore the desire that surged through her at being so close to him, undressing him like she'd done so many times in completely different contexts. He sat on the edge of the bed and she helped him pull the jeans over the cast. She found herself longing to touch him, to kiss him, climb on top of him, feel him between her legs… She flushed, her face heating up, and stepped back, looking away from him and cursing the timing of these feelings.

Tommy climbed into the bed and gave another heavy sigh as he lay back against the pillows. "I hate this," he said quietly. "All of this. The pain, you having to help me with everything… I just fucking hate this."

"At least you're home," Jude said with a cheerfulness that rang false to her own ears. "That's something."

Tommy frowned at her. "Am I, Jude? Is this still home?" His tone was harsh.

The comment stung. She could tell by his guilty expression that he saw her flinch. She cleared her throat to rid it of the lump that had formed there and took a few steps back from the bed. "Okay, I'm going to let you sleep." She looked down at the ground when she said it. "And, uh… if you want me to I can… I'll just grab my pillow and sleep on the couch."

He sighed. "Don't be stupid," he said. Then, more gently, "Sleep in the bed, Jude. It's your bed, it's our…" he shook his head. "You can sleep next to me, it's not a problem. Please do."

"I'm just trying to figure out how much you hate me."

He sat up a little on the pillows, though it seemed to take monumental effort. His voice was quiet, but sure as he said, "I don't hate you, girl. I couldn't ever hate you. I…" he trailed off, shaking his head. "It's hard, it's… impossible, but I _don't_ hate you, okay?"

She felt tears threatening when he called her "girl," and fought them back. "Do you think you'll ever forgive me?" she asked softly.

Tommy took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh, closing his eyes. There was pain in his expression, and his voice when he spoke was tight and quiet. "I want to. I'm trying."

… ... … ... …

The second night Tommy was home, Jude woke in tears from a nightmare, gasping for breath. As soon as she became aware of where she was, she tried to quiet her crying, sitting up and looking over at Tommy sleeping next to her. It was dark in the bedroom, but the little bit of light allowed her to see his chest rising and falling, and it made her at least able to breathe again. As she tried to stop the crying, taking shaky breaths, Tommy stirred and groaned. "Jude?" he croaked, his voice thick with sleep. "What–"

"Sorry," she apologized quickly, sniffling and wiping her eyes. "I didn't mean to wake you up. I'm fine. It's fine, go back to sleep. I'm sorry."

He turned his face toward her, concerned, "What is it?"

"Just a nightmare," she said, running a hand through her hair and taking deep breaths to try and slow her still-racing heart. "It's fine. I'm sorry I woke you."

He tried to shift positions and winced. "Ow, fuck."

"Are you okay? Head or leg?"

"Both," he groaned. "Everything." He glanced at the clock, which read 3:49. "I went to bed too early. Painkillers are starting to wear off. Can you get me the–" he cut off when he realized she was already turning on the lamp and moving around to his side of the bed. She took out a pill and grabbed the glass of water she'd set there last night. After she helped him sit up and he took the pill, he tried to relax again into the pillows. He missed the injections of medication in the hospital, which went into effect so much more quickly.

Jude sat on the edge of the bed and reached out, meaning to brush the hair off of his forehead, but she pulled her hand back at the last second. He gently grabbed her hand, pulling it to him and turning his face to kiss her palm, giving her permission to touch him. She smiled and gently stroked his hair. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Meds'll kick in eventually. You?"

"Oh. Fine." She waved a hand dismissively. "Just a nightmare. I'm really sorry I woke you up. It's no big deal," she insisted, but she sniffled a little as she said it, pulling her hand back to wipe her eyes again.

His heart ached at the sight of tear tracks on her face. "You're having nightmares?" he asked, reaching out to take her hand again, squeezing it. Jude had been having bad nightmares on and off for years, first after what happened with Hunter, then after each time with Megan. Just as they had both finally been getting past that, Caroline died. For the first few weeks after their daughter's death, Jude had woken in tears at least once a night.

Jude shrugged, trying to brush it off. "Sometimes. This was the first one since you've been home, though. I think they're not as bad when you're here." She smiled a little. "I'm fine."

"Caroline?" he asked softly.

She shook her head, looking down at her lap. "You, this time."

His heart broke a little more at that. "I'm okay," Tommy insisted. "I am, Jude."

She looked back up at him and gave a watery smile, squeezing his hand. "I know. It was just a dream."

He wanted to say something else, wanted to tell her he loved her, but the words wouldn't come out, so he just asked again, "You okay?"

"Yeah," she nodded, pulling their entwined hands up to her lips and kissing his the back of his hand lightly. "Thanks." She reached out to stroke his hair one more time before turning off the light and getting back in bed.

After several long minutes of laying there, listening to her breathing, Tommy said "Jude?" His voice was thick, his words starting to slur a little as the medication kicked in and sleep washed back over him.

He heard her shift, turning towards him. "Yeah? You okay?"

"-'m fine. You should come here." When one of them had nightmares, they always used to curl up together, holding each other until they fell asleep again. He was half asleep now, but he wanted her to know he was here, that he was okay, that she didn't have to be scared. Jude sat up, preparing to come around to his side of the bed again, and he said, "No, no, don't get up, I mean… you should come _here_ here… come closer, lay with me."

"Oh." Jude sounded surprised. "Really?"

"Mhmm."

She moved closer to him, but hesitated. "I don't want to hurt you."

"No, 'sokay, just careful of the ribs on the right." She lay down next to him, tentatively, barely touching him, and he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her snugly into his left side. He felt her relax, laying her head on his chest and curling into his side, her leg over his.

"This doesn't hurt, does it?" she asked, tilting her face to look up at him.

"No." He bent his head down to press a kiss to her forehead. Truthfully, the weight on his chest did hurt his ribs a little at first, but the twinge of pain was worth it for the relief he felt at finally holding her close again. He'd missed this more than he'd realized. She placed a hand over his heart and nuzzled into his chest. He kissed her hair and breathed in the comfortingly familiar scent of her shampoo.

After a long moment, she spoke again. "I miss you," she said quietly, her voice breaking a little.

Tommy was almost asleep, but he tightened his arm around her and murmured, "I'm right here."

… ... … ... …

Jude washed Tommy's hair as he sat in his wheelchair in front of the bathroom sink, and he actually allowed himself to relax as her fingers gently massaged his scalp, careful not to pull on the skin near the incision. He smiled at her when she said, "All done," and he even leaned into her hand a little when she placed it on the side of his face and stroked his cheek briefly with her thumb.

The atmosphere shifted when she helped him undress, both of them becoming tense and awkward. She helped him into the bath, being careful to keep the cast on his leg out of the water. Jude knelt next to the tub and tried to suppress the ill-timed desire that welled up in her at the sight of his naked body. She tried not to help him too much, for fear he'd get irritated and snap at her, only reaching out to help him support himself when he had to sit forward, an awkward position when his leg had to be kept lifted out of the water, and gently taking the washcloth from him to wash his back after watching him struggle with it. She felt the tension in his muscles, saw his clenched jaw, and found herself desperately hoping, as horrible as it was, that it was because he was in pain, and not a reaction to her touching him.

Neither of them spoke until the water was drained and she helped him awkwardly out of the tub, ending up having to pull him flush against her with his arm around her shoulders. "Sorry," he said quietly as he stabilized and moved backwards. He stood in front of her, one arm still around her shoulders for balance, and looked down at the spots of water on her shirt. "Didn't mean to get you wet."

She highly doubted the innuendo was intentional, but she couldn't help letting out a breathless laugh. "I don't mind," she said softly, finally unable to resist the temptation to let her fingers trail lightly over his bare chest, her gaze following her hand over his still-damp skin.

She felt him shiver, heard his breath quicken. "Jude…" he said in a low voice, almost a warning.

She looked back into his eyes, allowing her hand to move a little lower and stepping closer to him. "Yes?" she breathed.

Electricity crackled between them for just a second before pain flashed in his expression and he looked away. "Hand me the towel, please," he said, his voice tight.

She felt the rejection like a knife in her gut, and she pulled her hand back, her cheeks burning. The sick irony of it infuriated her. For weeks after Caroline died, she'd been unable to let him touch her, even when she could see that he desperately craved the intimacy, that he wanted her, needed her, to comfort him. She'd seen desire in his eyes on more than one occasion and had cringed away from his touch. Now she was a ball of aching tension, of molten need as he stood in front of her dripping wet and half-hard, and it was him who cringed. She tried to push away the pain and the humiliation she knew she deserved, silently handing him his towel.

"Thank you," he said softly, quickly wrapping the towel around his waist, covering up. She helped him to the wheelchair and wheeled him into the bedroom. He moved to sit on the edge of the bed, keeping the towel wrapped around his waist, and she brought him his clothes. "I got it," he said as she started to help him.

"Are you s–" she started to ask, but he cut her off.

"I've got it, Jude," he said, more firmly, still not meeting her eyes. It was a dismissal, and she tried not to let on that it hurt. She nodded and turned away, but as she was almost to the door he said, "I want to hire a nurse."

She turned back. "What?"

"Just for the next couple weeks. Part-time. Just for stuff like this." He saw the pain in her expression and looked guilty. "It's not that I'm not grateful, but it just… it shouldn't have to be your job, yeah?"

She stammered, "I- I don't mind, I–"

"I know," he cut her off, again. "And thank you for that. But I think it'll work better this way." He said it gently, trying to soften the blow.

It didn't work. She felt tears stinging in her nose. This was Tommy, her proud, vain Tommy Q, and he'd rather have a stranger help him in the bath than let her touch him. "If that's what you want," she said, her voice tight.

"It is," he confirmed softly. She nodded and turned away again as the tears started to fall, and she heard him whisper, "I'm sorry," as she walked back into the bathroom.

She stripped off her clothes and got into the shower where in another life they'd made love more times than she could count, and she let the water mix with her tears. Despite the pain of his rejection, she was still filled with a frustrated ache, and she was desperate to rid herself of it. She put a hand between her legs, trying to pretend they were his fingers inside her, trying to remember his eyes full of love and desire instead of with pain and anger. She came with a sob.


	29. Chapter 29

**A/N:** Shara: I'm not totally consistent with a posting schedule, but generally speaking I update Wednesdays and Saturdays. Sometimes more often, but pretty much never less than twice a week (unless something unexpected happens to prevent me from updating).

* * *

"Jude," Tommy's voice came from next to her. He sounded insistent, like it wasn't the first time he'd tried to get her attention. She pulled out her earphones and looked up from her computer, surprised.

"Hey." She hadn't heard him enter the living room where she was sitting on the couch, had been playing her music too loudly for the hum of the power wheelchair to register. She shut her laptop and set it on the coffee table, turning to look at him. "Sorry, I didn't hear you. Is everything okay? Do you need something?"

She intentionally didn't say "do you need help." They'd had a fight that morning, a bad one, when he'd nearly fallen trying to move from the bed to the new wheelchair. She had moved to help as soon as she had seen what he was trying to do, but he'd shot her a look and she'd backed off. It had been obvious that he wanted to do it on his own, but there had been a moment when he was supporting his weight on his bad arm, and it had given out suddenly. He'd almost fallen to the floor, and she'd let out a yelp of "Tommy, careful!" as a sudden vision had come into her mind of him hitting his head and hurting himself again.

She'd rushed to help him, and he had snarled, "Don't touch me!" When she stammered that she was just trying to help, he had pushed himself up into the wheelchair and shouted at her that he didn't want her help. She started to protest and he had cut her off, shouting, "Get out! I don't want your help, I don't want you touching me, I don't want you here! Get out!" She had flinched and recoiled. She had whispered an apology and tried not to let him see her start to cry as she'd turned and left the bedroom. She knew he'd felt guilty immediately, had heard him mutter a curse to himself as she'd turned away.

He had apologized later, taking her hand and looking into her eyes with an expression of deep guilt and sorrow as he explained that he hadn't meant it, that the whole situation was just incredibly frustrating, that he had been in pain, but that it had been wrong to take it out on her. She'd assured him it was okay, she could handle it. He'd repeated that he was sorry, and she had looked down at their entwined hands and said in a choked whisper, "Anyway, I guess I deserve it." He'd sighed and said her name in a pained voice, but he hadn't actually argued with her statement. Even though she'd been the one to say it, it stung knowing he agreed.

Now he said, "Yeah, everything's… fine, I just…" He looked a little nervous, she thought, and sad. "I, uh… I need to ask you something. We need to talk about…" he sighed, shutting his eyes for a moment. "I need to try and understand something."

She raised her eyebrows, then frowned a little, confused. "Um… okay?"

He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly before looking back at her and saying, "I need you to tell me why you did it."

It took her a moment to figure out what he meant, but when she did, her eyes widened. "Tommy–" she started, but he cut her off, putting his hand up.

"And I don't want to hear another apology, I don't want to hear about how it was a mistake and you wish you could take it back, and I really don't want to hear you say again that you love me." He grimaced a little as he said the words.

"But I–" Jude started to protest, but Tommy cut her off again.

"That's not the point!" he snapped. Then, calmer, he said, "I know, okay? I know you're sorry, I know you regret it, I know you…" he sighed and shook his head. "I get that part. Everything you've been saying for the past few weeks, all the apologies, I get it. I'm _trying_ to forgive you, I am. But the part that I still can't get my head around is _why_. So I need you to explain to me what it was that made you do it."

"Tommy…" Jude sighed, shaking her head. "This isn't going to help any–"

"Why?" He cut her off, raising his voice. "Why did you do it, Jude? Why did you cheat on me? What could have made you decide to throw us away like that?" His voice shook on the last few words, and Jude felt tears pricking her eyes.

"No, Tommy, it wasn't like that," she insisted.

"Then what the fuck _was_ it like, Jude?"

"It's not like I planned it!" she protested. "I didn't _decide,_ I didn't… It just _happened_ , okay? It was a mistake, I–"

"No," he cut her off, firmly. "No. Cheating doesn't _just happen_ , Jude. People say that, _I_ have said that, but it's a goddamn lie."

"He kissed me, he just… _he_ kissed _me_ , Tommy. That's what happened, it was out of nowhere–"

"Bullshit," he hissed. "For one thing, there's a long fucking way from that to–"

"I _know_ I should've stopped it sooner, Tommy, you don't think I know that? It all happened so fast, I didn't think, I didn't–"

"No! That is not good enough!"

"What do you want me to say, Tom? That it wasn't a mistake? That I planned it? I didn't! It was! It's not like my dad, it wasn't an affair, I wasn't sleeping with someone for months and keeping it from you, it was one time! I regretted it immediately, I stopped it, and I was honest about–"

"Stop!" Tommy shouted, cutting her off. "Shut up for a second!" He squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath, clearly fighting to control his anger. When he opened his eyes and spoke again, his voice was calmer. "Okay, of course I believe that you didn't plan it. But that doesn't mean it wasn't still a decision."

"It wasn't like that!" Jude protested again. "I– I got carried away, it happened so fast and I… I don't know what you want me to say. I don't know what you think this is going to help."

His jaw clenched, but he kept his voice relatively calm when he spoke. "Maybe in the moment it wasn't a conscious choice, and if it had really come out of nowhere, or if all you had done was kiss him, then maybe I'd believe that you just got carried away, but that is _not_ what happened. Even if you didn't plan or decide to cheat, you still fucking decided to put yourself in a situation where you knew it could happen."

"I didn't know," she whispered, eyes wide. "I didn't know what was going to happen until it was already happening."

"Bullshit!" Tommy said again, agitated again. "That is complete bullshit! You knew he was into you, you _knew_ he flirted with you, you fucking let him! And then you pulled an all nighter with him, let him stick around after the recording was finished, you _drank_ with him! And _he_ may have kissed _you_ , but then you let him do a hell of a lot more than that! You let him– you–" he cut off with a noise somewhere between a sigh and a growl. "You let him _inside you,_ " he hissed, his expression contorting with pain and disgust. She felt sick, her stomach lurching, and she covered her mouth with her hand, tears spilling out and over her cheeks. His face was red, his hand clenched, white-knuckled, on the arm of the chair. "Am I wrong?" he asked, tightly. She couldn't speak, just shook her head, her hand still over her mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut again, murmuring, "God fucking dammit," under his breath. After a moment, he opened his eyes and spoke again in a tight voice, "Every step of that was a decision, Jude."

Jude felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. She looked at Tommy for a long moment, at a loss for words, before dropping her hands back to her lap and whispering, "You're right."

Pain flashed in Tommy's expression, and she saw him swallow hard before breathing, "Why?"

"I… I never wanted to hurt you, or to betray you, or to ruin us, or… I never would've risked… If I had been thinking, if I had…" she let out a little sob, "I don't know what to tell you."

"Tell me _why_." There was more desperation in his voice now than before. "I need to understand why. What could have made you do this? What was going through your head that made you… I need to understand what happened. I want to forgive you, Jude, I do, but I _can't_ if I don't understand _why_."

"What if there is no why?" she protested desperately. "What if I don't know why either?"

"There _has_ to be a reason, Jude! Unless the reason is that you just didn't give a fuck about me, us, our relationship, then–"

"That's not fair!" she cut him off, more tears streaming down her face. "Don't say that! You know I care, Tommy. I have _proven_ that!"

"Then _why?"_ he cried.

"I don't know!"

He kept pushing, speaking louder and faster. "Was it him, then? Was there something about him you just couldn't resist, something he has that I–"

"No!" Jude cried, appalled. "God, of course not. It wasn't about him, it was more complicated that that." She sighed, putting her head in her hands, briefly, before looking up and saying, "Fine. You want to know the truth? After Caroline di–" but she barely got their daughter's name out before Tommy cut her off again.

"No," he said in a harsh, low voice. "No fucking way do you get to use that as an excuse. She was my daughter too, Jude. I lost my daughter too, and I didn't go and fuck the first girl to flirt with me. You don't get to claim–"

Jude cut him off. "Let me talk!" she shouted. "For fuck's sake! You don't get to ask this question and then shut me down when I try to give you an answer! Of _course_ it's not an excuse, Tom. I'm not making excuses. You asked me why, you asked me what was going through my head, and I am trying to tell you, if you would just shut up and let me talk for two seconds!" Tommy's jaw clenched in anger, but he nodded once, a signal for her to go on. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. When she spoke, the anger had drained from her voice, replaced by a quiet, exhausted pain. "Caroline is gone." She closed her eyes for a moment. "And when she died, it was like… Nothing made sense anymore. _I_ didn't make sense. I couldn't… It was such a short time that she was here but I don't know who I _am_ anymore without her." Jude opened her eyes again and looked back at Tommy. "And I didn't know who _we_ were without her. We were fighting constantly, we were…" she sighed, looking down at her hands.

"And that's all it took?" Tommy's voice was tight.

"What?" She looked back up at him, confused.

"We had a fight, you were mad at me, so that was it, game over? It was that easy for you to throw us away?" He looked more hurt than angry now.

"What? No, of course not! You're not listening to me. It wasn't about the fight. I mean, that was why I worked late, so I guess in some way, maybe, but, no. It was about… me, it was…" She sighed again, looking back down. "I think you're right, when you say I knew how he felt. I didn't _know_ , I didn't… I guess I didn't think about it. But, I don't know, part of me knew. And I did, I let him flirt with me. You were right about that. It was like… I didn't know how to be with you. I couldn't separate being with you from the grief about Caroline, you know? But when I was with Benjamin, he… saw me differently, I guess? He didn't know me as anything other than a musician and a producer, so I felt like when I was with him, that's who I could be. When I was with you I was the mother of a dead child, and I couldn't figure out how to be anything other than that. Maybe I liked spending time with him because I could escape from that, for a second." She was mumbling now, still looking down at her hands. "So then we had that fight, he and I were behind schedule on the single and I used that as an excuse to–"

"To get away from me," he finished, softly. Jude looked up. Tommy was looking at her, his expression unreadable.

She bit her lip, then said, "I should've talked to you about how I was feeling. Instead of getting so angry about what you said to him, I should've thought through why you said it, about the parts of it that were true, instead of putting myself in a situation where it became true. But I didn't know he was going to kiss me, and even if I had known, I wouldn't have believed that I would've…" she trailed off again.

A muscled tensed in his jaw for just a second. "But then you did." His voice was still quiet.

"It was late, we were drinking, and he kissed me and I just…"

"Didn't feel grief," he finished, quietly. She was surprised, shocked but elated for a moment that maybe he understood, maybe this was him forgiving her, but then he said, "It's what you told Kwest."

"Oh." Jude tried to hide her disappointment. "You heard that?"

Tommy shook his head. "Not all of it, I was in and out a lot at that point." He sighed and looked at her for a long moment, searching her face. Eventually he said, "So you didn't feel grief. He kissed you, and for the first time in months you were finally happy?"

"No!" she protested. "You're twisting my words, Tommy!"

He looked angry again. "If you don't want to be with me, just say that. If losing Caroline was too much, and you can't be the person you want to be when you're with me, then you could've said that to me, you didn't have to fuck some other guy."

"That's not fair," she objected, tears filling her eyes again. "You know that's not what I meant. You _know_ that's not true."

"Just listen for a second to what you're telling me, Jude. You didn't know how to be with me, you weren't happy, so you start hanging out with this other guy because he can somehow fucking see you for who you really are or something, and then he kisses you and you don't feel grief anymore, unlike, apparently, kissing me, which clearly had gotten to the point where it was making you miserable."

"That's not true!" she cried. "Of course I wasn't happy, Tommy, of course I was miserable, because our daughter is _dead_ and I could never think about anything else. So no, I wasn't happy, and you weren't happy, but it wasn't because of you! I didn't do this to hurt you, and I didn't do it because I didn't want to be with you, it happened because I didn't know how to be _me_ anymore. I don't know how to… How to _be_ , how to keep going on. It's never been _about_ you, it just made it really hard to know how to be with you. Are you honestly telling me that you didn't feel that?"

Tommy frowned at her for a moment, then said, "She was my daughter too. So sure, yeah, there were points when I felt like it was too much, and obviously we were fighting and it was rough, but no, Jude, I didn't ever feel the need to get away from you by spending time with some other girl. Sometimes I felt like I needed out, or I needed a drink, and then I _fucking stayed_. I didn't drink, I didn't leave, I didn't sleep with someone else."

"You're a fucking saint, Tom!" she shouted. "Is that what you want me to say? Fucking congratulations! You're perfect, you're wonderful, and I'm awful, I'm horrible, I'm–"

Tommy spoke over her. "Jude, stop."

She kept shouting, tears pouring down her face. "I'm a piece of shit, I'm a fucking whore, I–"

"Jesus, Jude! Stop!"

"I betrayed you, I let you down, I made the biggest fucking mistake of my life, I–"

"Girl, come on." Tommy pushed himself out of the wheelchair, struggling to stay off of his broken leg as he transferred to the couch.

"I don't deserve–" Jude finally cut off as Tommy moved, saying through tears, "No, Tommy, careful, you don't have to–"

"Shh, Jude," Tommy hushed her with a heavy sigh as he sat on the couch, reaching out to put an arm around her shoulders. "Come here," he said gently. She looked at him in surprise for a second, but moved to sit close to him. He hugged her to him, and she laid her head on his shoulder. The unexpected tenderness of it made her cry harder, sobbing into his shirt. He stroked her hair and said, softly, "I never said any of that." Jude raised her head and looked at him, raising an eyebrow, and he sighed. "Alright, well, I never meant it." He reached out and brushed tears from her cheeks.

She looked into his eyes and whispered, "You should know that I hate myself every bit as much as you hate me."

"Oh, Jude…" Tommy looked devastated. "I don't. Honestly, _honestly_ , I don't hate you, I could never. Please don't think that."

Jude sniffled and sat up, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. "I wouldn't blame you."

He sighed again and shook his head. "I… Obviously I'm angry, I'm fucking furious, sometimes, and obviously it hurt, but that doesn't mean that I hate you, or that I don't want to be with you, because I _do_. I still… I want us to get past this, it's just really fucking hard, okay? Especially when I'm in a lot of pain, or the meds are messing me up, or I'm frustrated with the physical therapy and all of that, you know? I know I'm taking it out on you, but please don't let that make you think that I don't…" He sighed again, shaking his head. "I'm sorry. I've been treating you like shit. I'm... I know I've been hurting you."

She reached over and grabbed his hand, squeezing his fingers gently. "It's okay. I'm okay, I understand." She let go of his hand and looked down, away from him. "It was… It was one moment of… There's no excuse, but I was lost, I had lost myself, I was… Caroline died and everything _shattered_ , everything was upside down and inside out and so when we went back to work, I tried to latch on to anything that made me feel normal for a second. For that one moment at three in the morning after a fight with you and half a bottle of champagne and two months of feeling broken and numb and…" She was crying again, her voice choked. "For one second I let myself think that he was some kind of escape, and that that's what I wanted. It happened really fast, and I let it go way too far before I stopped it." She looked up again. "But I did stop it, Tommy, I _did_. I know that doesn't change anything, but I- I came to my senses and I stopped him and I made him leave and I know that's not enough and I still made a horrible mistake, but you _have_ to understand that it didn't mean anything. It was never about him, and it was never because I didn't want to be with you. I _love_ you. I know you told me not to say that, but it's true, Tommy, I love you. I don't _ever_ want to be with anyone except for you. Do you believe me?" She gave him a wide-eyed, pleading look.

Tommy sighed. "I… I want to, Jude. I'm trying to." He looked at her for a moment, then gestured with his head and said, "Come here." She moved close again, leaning into him and wrapping her arms around his waist, trying to be careful of his ribs. She tucked her head into the hollow of his neck and he leaned down to kiss her hair, his arm around her shoulders. He had lost a lot of weight since the accident, and was thin in her arms, his collarbone sharper under her cheek than she was used to. But he was warm and he smelled like soap and laundry detergent and home. She felt herself start to cry harder again, and decided not to fight the tears. After a long moment of holding her, as her crying subsided, Tommy said, "Thank you for being honest."

She looked up at him and nodded, placing a hand on his cheek. "Always. And thank you for trying." He nodded, giving her a little smile. Even though the smile was slight and his eyes stayed sad, Jude felt a rush of relief and smiled back.

"I have PT," he said suddenly, breaking the moment. "I'm gonna be late, we should go."

"Right." She pulled away and sat up, sniffling and wiping the rest of the tears from her face.

As she stood up, he said, "Can you help me?" reaching a hand out to her. It was such a small thing, and a strange token of apology, but Jude felt her heart squeeze anyway.

When they pulled up to the clinic, Tommy stopped Jude before she got out of the car, saying, "Hey." She turned to him, surprised, and he leaned in, reaching out to put a hand on her cheek. "We're gonna be okay," he said gently, stroking her cheek with his thumb. She leaned in, and he kissed her, softly.

When she pulled back, she whispered, "I love you."

He looked at her for a moment, _her_ look on his face, the one that had been turning her heart inside out since she was 15 years old, then nodded. "I know, girl."

It wasn't exactly what she wanted. She had hoped he'd say it back, say he loved her, maybe even that he forgave her. But still, it was something. And for now, it was enough.

* * *

 **A/N:** You know how I love writing the long conversations, so here's another for my repertoire.


	30. Chapter 30

**A/N:** AR: to be honest, this whole story is a bit of a roller coaster of emotions. This chapter I think illustrates that (though possibly not as sharply as chapter 28 did)

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Tommy heard the door open, but he didn't make any move to greet Jude as she walked in. He was sitting at the baby grand piano, trying to make his left hand cooperate. It had now been a month since the accident, and he'd been out of the hospital for over two weeks. The plaster cast on his leg had been removed and replaced with a walking cast, his ribs had nearly healed, and he was down to relatively small amounts of painkillers. He occasionally used crutches if he had to walk a long way, but he didn't need the wheelchair anymore, and he could do everyday tasks by himself now, even bathing since the plaster cast was gone. The crippling fatigue that had plagued him for the first few weeks after the head injury was much improved too, though he still got awful headaches when he tried to do too much.

His main concern now was the continuing weakness in his left hand. Though his left leg was essentially back to normal, much stronger than his right leg with its healing fractures, he still had trouble with the finer motor skills in his bad hand. With all of the physical therapy, though, his dexterity was improving noticeably. Not only could he do simple things like make a fist, he could lift almost as much weight with his left arm as with his right, and his fine motor skills were coming back. He could even type on a computer keyboard fairly well, though his hand got tired quickly. The physical therapist had suggested he try to go back to practicing the piano, and said that soon he would be able to play guitar again.

Despite all the improvement, more complex movements like the ones involved in playing music were still difficult. On the piano he could play simple chords, and, because it was his left hand that had the issue, he could play most pop music if he concentrated. Something was still wrong, though. The sound was off when he had to put so much effort into the movement of each of his fingers. The music had no flow, and he was becoming increasingly frustrated. That, of course, made him tense, which made controlling his hand even harder.

Jude had come in and was standing next to the piano, smiling at him. "It's been a long time since I've heard you play," she said when he stopped playing for a moment to clench and unclench his fist, stretching out his hand. "I missed it."

Tommy just made a noncommittal "hmm" noise. She was trying to be helpful, so he refrained from voicing his irritation, but he knew that the way he was playing sounded nothing like him.

"It sounds really good, Tommy," she insisted, as if she'd read his mind, "it does."

"Whatever." He went back to playing, trying to play scales with his left hand. When he messed up, he tried again, but when he made yet another mistake, he let out a growl of frustration.

Jude came up and put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, it's okay."

He moved away, out of her reach. "No, it isn't! Nothing about this is okay!"

She pulled her hand back. "Maybe you should take a break," she suggested gently.

Tommy looked down at his hands. "Leave it, Jude. I need to do this."

She sighed. "You're stressing out and it's making it worse."

He ignored her, and tried to play again, but his hand spasmed. "Goddammit!" he shouted, slamming his fist down on the keys.

"Come on," Jude said quietly, putting her hand back on his shoulder. "Take a break. Seriously."

"I need to do this!" he protested again without meeting her eyes, shrugging her hand off. A tremor in his hand as he stretched it back out over the keys made him hiss a curse. "I'm fine," he said, sensing her concern and cutting her off preemptively. "It's just frustrating. You really don't have to worry about it. Please don't." He put his hands up to his face, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, sighing heavily.

"I can think of something that'll help." Jude's voice was close to his ear. "Take the edge off."

He looked up, confused, and turned to see her pull her shirt over her head, revealing a blue lace bra that had once been one of his favorites. Even though he still couldn't sort out how he felt about their relationship after what she'd done, his physical response to the sight of her was strong and immediate. "Harrison…" he groaned as she unbuttoned her jeans and slid them down her legs. He tore his gaze away, turning his head.

"Quincy…" she breathed in reply, her lips brushing his ear and making him shiver. Her hand slid from his shoulder down his chest.

He shook his head, which made her nose brush lightly against his cheek. "I need to keep working on this, Jude."

"It's okay to take a break," she whispered, raking her fingernails lightly up his chest. He could feel her breasts pressed into his back, her breath on his neck, and felt himself getting hard. His self-control was slipping.

"I…" His voice was slightly hoarse, his throat having gone dry. "I need to work on my… my hand." It was infuriating, really, how much she could affect him, even when he was still trying to process all the shit that had happened to them in the last few months.

"I can think of better uses for that hand," Jude murmured, pressing her front closer against his back, digging her fingers into his chest. He groaned softly, but he shook his head again. He felt her sigh. "Tommy, please," she practically whimpered. She moved so she was sitting on the piano bench next to him.

He turned to look at her. Her eyes were dark and pleading and desperately sad, and he found himself longing to taste the skin of her neck. "Jude, I just…" He trailed off with a sigh, turning away again and shutting his eyes. "It's complicated."

"No, it's simple. I want you to fuck me." Her words sent a red hot pulse of desire through him, and he looked back to her. "Tommy, I need you," she breathed. She slid her hand over his thigh to press it against his erection through his jeans, gently squeezing him. He couldn't contain a low moan, his head falling back. It had been so long, and even if his feelings for her were purely physical (though, of course, he knew that they weren't) he wanted her desperately. "But tell me you don't want to," her voice was husky, "and I'll back off right now."

 _"_ Jesus Christ, Jude…" he breathed, his voice ragged.

"Tell me to stop and I'll stop," she whispered in his ear.

"Don't stop," he groaned finally, turning and capturing her mouth with his. He wasn't sure he could make love to Jude right now. There was too much going on emotionally for that. He was still too hurt, too betrayed, too confused.

But making love wasn't what Jude had asked for. She'd asked him to fuck her, and that he could do.

Her fingers were in his hair, and she tried to climb on top of him, but they were too close to the piano. Tommy stood up, ignoring the pain in his still-healing leg, and kicked the bench away with his uninjured foot. He pushed Jude against the keyboard, playing a cluster of dissonant notes that made her laugh breathlessly. Her fingers worked to undo the button and zipper of his jeans, and he pushed the jeans and his underwear the rest of the way down, stepping out of them, managing with some effort to get the pant leg off over the bulky walking cast. His hands cupped her ass, pressing her against him, trying desperately to create the friction he needed, frustrated at the fabric still between them.

Jude gasped his name and wrapped her legs around his waist, thrusting and grinding against him, but it wasn't working at this angle, with her underwear still on, so he picked her up and lowered them both to the floor, pulling the thong off of her and tossing it aside. As soon as it was gone, he plunged himself into her and she cried out. He wasn't normally this frantic, this rough and abrupt. Normally he prided himself on not rushing through. He wasn't a horny teenager, racing to the finish line. But as he looked down at Jude now, he couldn't get rid of the thought that the last person to see her like this had not been him. Everywhere he touched her, somewhere in his mind he wondered if Benjamin had done the same, and it made him furious. He couldn't kiss her, touch her, knowing that he wasn't the last person to do so.

When Jude had been engaged to Alexander, when he had known that another man was touching her, making love to her, it made him upset, furious even, but not like this. Back then, he had dreamed of kissing every inch of the skin that was no longer his to touch. When she had come back to him, he had been sure she was finally and wholly his again. For weeks on tour he had found himself touching her whenever he got the chance. Just little touches, on her back, her wrist, the back of her neck, because finally _finally_ he could. Now he felt like she'd given away something that belonged to him. He knew it was wrong to think of her body as his possession, which was why he hadn't been angry when she hadn't been able to let him touch her for the weeks following their daughter's death. He obviously knew Jude wasn't "his", an object he was allowed to own.

But in some sense, wasn't she? He certainly didn't own _her_ , but he owned the right to be the sole person who could touch her like this, who was allowed to taste her, to see all of that pale skin of hers. That was what it meant when they had committed to being together for the rest of their lives. True, they had not made that commitment with rings or ceremonies, but they'd made the promise all the same, and now she'd broken it, and he couldn't look at her without feeling that betrayal.

So he rushed, closing his eyes and thrusting into her until he reached his climax, finishing before her, without her, collapsing on top of her and breathing heavily as she whimpered and continued thrusting against him, trying desperately to find her own release. Her nails raked across his back and she panted, "Tommy, please," so he pulled out of her and grabbed her face, forcing her to look into his angry eyes. "Did he?" He asked in a low voice.

"What?" Jude breathed, utterly confused by the question.

His eyes were dark and furious, his hand holding her jaw a little too tightly, his voice a hiss. "Did that bastard make you come?"

Jude's eyes widened. "No!" she gasped. "No, I… I stopped it, I… Tommy it wasn't like that."

"Good," Tommy growled, putting a hand between her legs and making her gasp his name with his callused fingers. When her orgasm had come and subsided, he sat back, looking down at her. Part of him wanted to kiss the familiar pink birthmark on the side of her ribs, the fading stretch marks and C-section scar on her stomach, to pull her to him and lie there holding her, to stroke her hair, to tell her he loved her. His head was pounding, and there was pain in his leg and his still-healing ribs, but it was nothing compared to the hole in the pit of his stomach, the feeling that his heart had been torn from his chest.

Jude sat up shakily and took his face in her hands, kissing his lips softly. Tommy didn't move, didn't kiss her back. She pulled back to look at him and her eyes were bright with tears. "I love you so much, Tom Quincy," she whispered. "You and only you. Always always. Please, you have to know that. Please."

He looked at her for a moment, his eyes tight with pain. "I can't," he said finally, his voice breaking. He pulled away and stood up, silently grabbing his clothes and leaving the room without looking back at her.

* * *

 **A/N:** Pretty sure I just wrote the saddest sex scene ever? How is it that in a story about a dead baby, _this_ was one of the saddest scenes? Maybe it's just me, but this was really hard to write. Jommy's got issues, man.


	31. Chapter 31

**A/N:** I was up very late last night being Terrified because of the election but anyway hi it's Wednesday, here's some fanfiction.

* * *

Four days before Zeppelin's due date, on the 29th of June, over a month after Tommy left the hospital, Jamie called Jude to tell her that his son Michael Felix Andrews had been born. He said that mom and baby were both doing well, and Jude was genuinely happy at the news, despite an initial wave of grief. Tommy, too, had managed a sincere smile and a "Congrats, Andrews." Their flight to Toronto was already booked for a few days later.

Jude hoped that maybe being out of the apartment, out of London, would help, because she was at a complete loss for what to do. Tommy's moods were unpredictable, his temper often flaring unexpectedly. Even when he was in a relatively good mood, he wouldn't really look at her most of the time, and when he did, his eyes were often full of an anger and pain that broke her heart. They'd even had sex a few more times in the past couple weeks, but it was awkward and tense and it seemed like afterwards he couldn't speak to her for hours, as if the sex just made him even angrier at her.

It's not like he was being cruel, not even mean. He still talked to her, still asked how she was doing, still gave her a quick kiss before one of them left the apartment, though he'd failed on several occasions to get past the "I…" in what she assumed was "I love you." The fact that he was even trying, that he'd even stayed with her, was better than she'd feared, but it still hurt like hell when she heard the words die in his throat.

They packed their suitcases together, even made it as far as the airport, but after Jude grabbed her suitcase out of the trunk of the car and turned to head to the terminal, she heard the trunk close, and Tommy said, "Jude, wait." She turned back to where he was leaning against the side of the car, without his bags, and the sad, serious look on his face scared her.

"What's wrong?" she asked, frowning.

"I'm…" He hesitated and then sighed. "I'm not coming with you to Toronto."

"What?" Her eyes widened "What do you mean? Why?"

He shook his head. "I can't."

Jude frowned, confused. "The doctor said you were cleared to fly three weeks ag–"

"It's not that. I can't do this." His voice was tight.

"Because of the baby?" she asked. "It's going to be really hard, Tommy, but we agreed that we need to get past that. He's my godson, Jamie's my best friend. They dropped everything to come out here for us. Twice."

"Which is why you need to go." He shook his head again. "But I can't, Jude."

"I…" Her mouth opened and shut a few times, at a loss for words. "Um… Okay," she said finally. "I guess I get it. If you don't want to, if you don't think you can, then I guess you don't have to. So I'll just… see you in a week?"

Tommy shut his eyes, hanging his head. "No," he said softly.

"No what?" she asked, her heart clenching in fear.

He looked back at her, sadly. "No, you won't see me in a week." His voice was quiet. "I'm not going to be here when you get back. I'm sorry."

Her heart dropped to her feet. "You're leaving me," she whispered in horror.

He looked pained. "I'm not. I just need some time, Jude."

"No," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. "No, no, please, Tommy, don't do this."

"So, uh, you know that Fitting Ideal is opening for A Day to Remember in the UK portion of their tour," he said slowly. "Producers don't really tour, but I asked Nora if I could go as a roadie or whatever, and she said yes."

Jude's lower lip trembled. "How long?"

"Two months. Rehearsals start a week from tomorrow."

"Tommy, no, please." She started to cry in earnest now.

"Hey." He reached out to her, put a hand on the side of her face. "I love you." His voice broke. "I really, really do. I love you so much it hurts. But that's the thing, Jude. It _hurts_." His eyes were bright with unshed tears. "I look at you and it hurts. Being in our apartment hurts. I touch you and all I can think about is his hands on you, and that hurts so much. I feel like I can't trust you anymore. You've been great, since the accident. You stuck by me, and you've helped me so much, and I'm grateful for that, but I can't keep doing this. I can't keep… I just need some time."

"What about physical therapy, what about doctors?"

"I've been cleared to do this. I talked to the doctors, and I have follow-up appointments scheduled. I'll take care of myself, promise."

He had been planning this for a while, then. Planning to leave. He let her think he was coming with her while he'd been planning this all along. "Two months?" she asked quietly.

Tommy nodded. "Maybe, but maybe longer, I don't know." He saw her betrayed expression and looked guilty. "I should have told you before now. I tried to tell you a bunch of times, but I was afraid to hurt you, and… I'm sorry."

"No, I'm the one who's sorry. I'm so sorry. You have to know that if I could take it all back…"

He put his arms around her, pulling her to him in a tight hug. "I believe that. But you can't take it back, and I can't keep trying to pretend I'm okay with it."

"I'm sorry," she said, sobbing into his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his waist.

"I know," he said softly, rubbing her back.

"I love you."

"I know." He pulled back, pushing her away gently, and kissed her on the forehead.

"Then don't go!"

He shook his head and dropped his hands from her arms, pulling away fully and leaning against the car again. "I have to."

"So that's it then?" she asked, sniffling, wiping the tears from her cheeks. "All these years, after everything, and now it's over? Did I really mess up that badly?"

"No," Tommy groaned. "It's not… Seriously, I'm not saying we're done, I'm saying I need some time."

"Should I fight for you?" she asked. "Do I need to beg you to stay, now? Because I'll do it, Tommy. I'll get down on my knees right here and beg if that's what it takes."

He sighed. "Jude…"

"If I told you I don't know what I'm going to do without you, if I tell you I need you, would that make any kind of difference at all?" Tears were streaming down her face again. "Is there anything I can do that will make you stay?"

Tommy shook his head. "I'm so sorry."

"No!" Jude cried, "Maybe I don't have a right to be angry, Tommy, but I am. You can't do this! You can't leave me! This isn't fair! You promised me! You promised no more running away!" Her voice was rising in pitch, getting more and more hysterical.

He took her face in both of his hands, gently wiping away tears with his thumbs. "It's going to be okay, Jude. It'll be good. For both of us. I need to do this."

"No!" Jude protested again, trying to shake her head. "No, no, please."

"Hey." He held her face gently, but firmly. "If I stay, things are going to get worse, not better. Sometimes staying together isn't the way to fix something." He moved his hands to her shoulders. "If I stay with you I'm going to just keep resenting you." Jude let out a little sob, and he wiped more of the tears from her cheeks. "I think I need to miss you, or something. I just need…" He trailed off, unable to find the words.

"Distance?" she finished. "I tried that once, remember?"

"And it _was_ what you needed, wasn't it? Didn't you tell me that you never regretted leaving?"

"No! That was two years I could have had with you that I wasted!" she protested.

He sighed again. "This isn't going to be like that."

"I almost lost you last month, Tommy, we lost Caroline, I can't–"

"Jude. You're not losing me, I promise. I just need to step back for a little bit." He gently brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "I still love you." His voice was soft.

"If we stay or walk away…" She shook her head. "Don't quote my own lyrics at me." He sighed and she sobbed, "Tommy, you promised. After the last time, in the hospital, after Megan, after… You _promised me_ no more leaving!"

He winced. "I know, Jude, but this isn't like that. I'm not running away, I'm not leaving, I just need some time, okay? I'm doing this for us, because I love you, because I want to be with you, because I don't want to give up on us. This is me trying to keep that promise."

She had already lost this battle, she realized. His expression was sad, but he was not giving in. He'd made up his mind, and because this was her fault, she didn't have a leg to stand on. She had to let him go. Her eyes widened and she whispered, "Please don't do this."

Tommy didn't say anything, just pulled her to him and kissed her, tangling his fingers in her hair. But it was a goodbye kiss, a last kiss, full of desperation and sorrow. Jude still tried to hold onto it as long as she could. But, too soon, Tommy broke away, saying, "Go. You're going to miss your flight."

"I don't care." She tried to kiss him again.

He pulled away, gently removing her arms from around his neck. "Say hi to everyone for me."

"Tommy, please." She said it one last time, even though she knew it wouldn't make a difference.

He shook his head sadly. "I'll call you, Jude." And with that, he got back in the car and drove away.


	32. Chapter 32

By the time she landed in Toronto, Jude had dried her tears. It didn't feel real, didn't feel like she was really thousands of miles away from him, or like he wasn't going to be there when she got back to London, but she had to focus on this now. She owed it to Jamie to get through this week, and then, who knows, maybe Tommy was right, and distance would be good for them. Maybe when he came back he would be really hers again. She'd already known, deep down, they couldn't keep going the way they had been, with him resenting her and her walking on eggshells, constantly scared to upset him.

Her zen attitude only lasted until Sadie asked where Tommy was, at which point Jude dissolved into tears again. Sadie's eyes widened and she quickly led Jude to her car, where they could talk privately.

"But I thought you were doing okay. I thought things were getting better," Sadie protested after Jude explained.

Jude shook her head with another little sob. "We were never okay. We were pretending."

"Oh, Jude." Sadie sighed, squeezing her sister's shoulder briefly, then muttering, "I am going to kill him."

"Sades, no." Jude shook her head, sniffling and wiping her cheeks. "This is my fault. He just did what he thought he needed, I guess."

"He… what? Got to the airport and decided he suddenly couldn't do it anymore?"

Jude shook her head. "He'd been planning this. He talked to the doctors, he talked to Nora." She put her head down and whispered, "I don't know. I guess he told everyone but me."

Sadie started to speak, but her phone rang. She scowled when she saw the name, and muttered, "Speak of the devil," under her breath.

"Tommy?" Jude's eyes widened.

Sadie shook her head and answered the phone. "Kwest," she snapped.

"Hey. Did you pick up T and Jude?"

"Jude's here, yeah, but _Tom_ is in _London,_ " she said angrily, narrowing her eyes.

"Oh no," Kwest groaned.

"You knew about this, didn't you?" Sadie cried incredulously. "You had to have known. You couldn't at least have warned me?" She lowered her voice, speaking in a harsh whisper. "I asked her where he was and she broke down in the middle of the airport, Kwest!"

"Sadie, I didn't… He told me last week what he was thinking of doing, that he was thinking they might need some time apart, but he hadn't gotten up the nerve to tell Jude, and I assumed that when I didn't hear from either of them, it was because he'd changed his mind. I was hoping he would change his mind."

Jude gave her sister a questioning look, and Sadie shook her head slightly. "So you knew, but you didn't know." She sighed.

"Look, I'm really sorry. He asked me not to tell anyone until he told Jude, and I could tell he wasn't sure… Is Jude okay?"

"Not as bad as it could be," Sadie said, not meeting Jude's gaze, and Jude rolled her eyes, tapping Sadie on the shoulder and gesturing for her to hand over the phone. Sadie put it on speaker.

"I'm fine, Kwest," Jude said. "He just blindsided me. I knew we weren't doing well, I just didn't know… Look, can we not talk about this over the phone? I'm alright. I can handle it."

"I'm sorry, Jude, I really thought he'd change his mind."

"I get it. This is my fault. He did what he had to do." Jude tried and failed to keep tears from forming in her eyes again. A few trickled down her cheeks, her voice cracking on the last word. She cleared her throat and wiped the tears away quickly. "I'm fine," she said again.

"He loves you," Kwest said gently. "He does. He just needs time. You guys are going to be okay."

"Sure," Jude said with another sigh. "Yeah, okay."

.

After dropping Jude's stuff at her apartment and asking repeatedly if she was okay, Sadie drove her to Jamie and Zeppelin's townhouse.

"Have you seen him? The baby?" Jude asked.

"Oh, yeah, a few times. Kwest and I saw them in the hospital when he still looked like a little alien."

Jude laughed at the alien comment, but then she narrowed her eyes at her sister. "Wait, you and Kwest went _together_? Like… you ran into him there, or you made a plan to go together?"

"He drove me. So?" Sadie asked defensively.

"Oh, nothing." Jude smirked. "Never mind."

"No. What is it, Jude?"

"Well, you being together when you visit us makes sense. You're my sister, Kwest is Tommy's best friend… But I didn't think you guys really spent time together here anymore. Plus Tommy said something once…"

"Said what?" Sadie still sounded defensive.

Jude shrugged. "He said Kwest kissed you, but I didn't believe it because you never said anything to me. Well, Tommy didn't either, really. He was on a lot of painkillers and I think it just slipped out."

Sadie sighed. "It was one kiss."

"So it really happened?!" Jude exclaimed. "And you didn't tell me?!" She hit Sadie on the shoulder.

"Ow! Jude! Driving, here!"

"Sister, here!" Jude exclaimed indignantly. "How could you not tell me something like that?"

"You're going through a lot, I didn't want to burden you, and I just…" Sadie trailed off, focusing on the road.

"And?" Jude prompted. "I always have time to hear about your life, Sades. If anything, it takes my mind off my own shit. So, what, you and Kwest are together again?!"

 _"No,"_ Sadie said emphatically. "We were both under a lot of stress, and we just… Look, it was one kiss, and then we both pretended like it never happened. We're… just friends."

She sounded unsure, and Jude gasped. "Oh my God! You and Kwest! You know, I always thought you two would end up getting back together."

"We're not together!" Sadie protested. "Seriously, I'm pretty sure he's seeing someone else."

"Why would he be seeing someone else when he can have you?" Jude was grinning.

"He cannot _have_ me. I don't… I don't know how I feel about–"

"Please." Jude scoffed. "You're crazy about him."

"He's seeing someone, okay? And I'm not _crazy_ about him. There may be some… feelings, but that's not the same thing."

"Sadie and Kwest, sitting in a tree!" Jude sing-songed.

"No, look. He's… he's all dreamy and happy and he's even, like, writing love songs. His notebook was sitting open on the table when I was over there the other day, and–"

"He's writing love songs about you!" Jude practically screeched.

"No he isn't! He went on a date this week, okay? Not with me. This week, and last week, and the week before… I promise you, Jude, he's seeing someone else. But it's okay, I really don't care. We're friends, and that's it."

"Goddammit, Kwest!" Jude exclaimed. "How can he date some other girl? I'm going to kick his ass."

"Don't you dare!" Sadie said as they pulled up to Jamie's place. "Seriously, Jude. It's nothing. We're friends. That chapter of my life ended a long time ago, okay? Can you please just drop it now?"

"Fine," Jude conceded as they got out of the car. "I will drop it, for now. But you had better keep me posted."

"There's nothing to post!" Sadie protested.

When they walked up to the front door, Jude saw that Jamie and Zeppelin had taped a note above their doorbell that read "for emergencies only" and she smiled a little at the memory of how everyone had tiptoed around their apartment for weeks, trying as hard as they could not to wake the newborn Caroline. Jude took out her phone and dialed Jamie's cell. He answered on the fourth ring, sounding groggy. Jude laughed. "Jamie, I'm outside your front door."

"Oh! Yeah, sorry, I'm coming, just a second." They hung up, and a moment later a very tired-looking Jamie showed up, unlocking the door. His face broke into a smile when he saw her, and he immediately pulled her into a tight hug. "It's so good to see you!" he exclaimed when he pulled back. "Hey Sadie! Come in." He stepped aside and Jude walked in. "Sorry about the mess," he said sheepishly, giving Sadie a hug.

"Don't worry about it," Jude laughed. "My place looks worse than this like 90% of the time, and I don't have…" She winced a little, but recovered. "I don't even have an excuse."

"Where are Zeppelin and the baby?" Sadie asked as she stepped in and Jamie closed the door behind her.

"Oh, uh, I think sleeping? I know he's sleeping, so that probably means she is too." He ran a hand through his hair and grabbed his glasses from the coffee table. "I know we should probably try to get him on some kind of schedule but right now it's like–"

"Sleep whenever you can," Jude finished with a little smile. "Yeah, I remember that." She looked down at her feet, her expression pained. "You wouldn't think you'd miss it," she said quietly.

"Oh, Jude." Jamie sighed and put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm so–"

"It's fine, I'm fine." Jude looked back up at him and shook her head, smiling again. "Hey, if we came at a bad time, we can come back later."

"No, no. I mean, he never stays asleep very long," Jamie said with a yawn.

Sadie smiled. "Well, I was just coming in to say hi, actually, but if he's asleep I'll let him sleep. I have to get back to work. Kwest and I will bring you guys dinner later."

"'Kwest and I?'" Jude asked with a smirk.

Sadie shot her a look, then said to Jamie, "Anyway, call me if you need anything."

When Sadie left, they sat down together on the couch and Jude said, "So what the heck is with Sadie and Kwest?"

"You know, I noticed that a while ago." Jamie looked thoughtful. "Do you think they're getting back together?"

"Hard to say. Sadie won't really talk about it. There are definitely feelings there, but Sadie says Kwest is seeing another girl."

He shrugged. "I don't know. I've been kind of out of the loop."

"Having a new baby will do that to you." She smiled. He nodded and then was overcome by a huge yawn. Jude laughed. "Jame, if you want to go back to your nap, don't let me stop you. I'm jetlagged as hell, I won't mind."

"No, no way," he insisted. "You came all this way. You haven't been in Toronto since the wedding."

The memory hit her hard. She'd been Jamie's best man (she'd joked that one day she might actually be a maid of honor instead of a best man, and Sadie had muttered, "Not any time soon," into her glass of champagne.) Jude was almost five months pregnant at the time, and she'd freaked out about the way she looked in her dress, cried over the fact that everyone would be drinking and she couldn't, swore she would throw up during her toast… and, through all of it, Tommy had been patient and supportive, talking her down expertly from her occasional hormonal freakouts so she could talk Jamie down from his last-minute panic about the color of his tie. Tommy made fun of her for how hard she cried during the ceremony, but that had mostly been to cover the fact that he too had gotten emotional when Jamie and Zeppelin said "I do." She sang at the reception, the first time she'd performed since the whole thing with Megan, and Jude could still remember the way Tommy looked at her, like she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Jude had come away from that weekend more deeply in love with Tommy than she'd ever been, and more sure than ever that having a baby together was the right thing to do.

There was an ache in her chest now, and she realized that Jamie hadn't asked why Tommy wasn't with her as planned. He had noticed her silence, and was looking at her quizzically. She sighed. "I take it Sadie told you about Tommy."

"Oh." Jamie's expression turned sad. "Yeah, she texted me about it. Mostly just to warn me not to ask where he was. Are you okay, Jude?"

She gave another heavy sigh. "I don't think I know what okay is anymore."

"So he just… left?" he asked gently. She put her head in her hands and groaned. He put a hand on her back. "I'm sorry. We don't have to talk about it."

She looked up again. "No, it's okay. I… Jamie, I messed up."

He sighed. "So that's why?"

She nodded tearfully. "He said he just needed some time. I guess it's the right thing to do, but it…" She took a deep breath and shook her head.

He put an arm around her, and she leaned against him. "I'm so sorry, Jude." He rested his cheek on the top of her head, and they sat there for a minute in silence.

"Hey, I'm sorry," she said after a while, straightening back up. "I swear I didn't come all the way here to sit on your couch and wallow."

"Don't worry about it. Mi couch es su couch," Jamie said through another big yawn.

Jude laughed a little at that. "You're sure you don't want to sleep, Jame?"

"Not gonna lie, a nap sounds pretty good right now."

She rolled her eyes. "Then take a nap, idiot!"

"You came all this way. I'd feel bad. Besides, it's only a matter of…" He trailed off with a sigh as the sound of the baby crying came from upstairs. "Time. Before that happens."

Jude laughed again. "Wow, the kid can really hit a cue!"

Jamie snorted. "Yeah, and he has an uncanny ability to know right when we're finally about to eat, or sleep, or shower…"

"It does get better," Jude said as she followed Jamie up the stairs. "Just so you know."

"Maybe if I weren't so sleep deprived I'd be more inclined to believe– whoa!" Jamie cut off as he ran straight into Zeppelin, coming out of their bedroom. She let out a yelp and took a step backwards. "Sorry!" Jamie cried, reaching out to steady her. "So sorry, Zep. You okay?"

"Jamie that's like the third time!" Zeppelin protested. "Do I need to wear a bell or something?" Jude tried to stifle her snicker, and Zeppelin looked behind her husband for the first time and her eyes widened. "Oh my gosh, Jude! I totally forgot you were coming today!" She put a hand up to her hair. "I'm a mess, the house is a mess. How long have you been here?"

"You're fine," Jude reassured her "I haven't been here long. Jamie said he thought you were probably sleeping, I figured I'd let you."

"No, I was folding laundry." She looked at Jamie, then corrected herself. "Well, okay, I was mostly sleeping on a pile of towels."

Jude smiled. "I fell asleep in the shower a couple of times." She shook her head at the memory. "Tommy once fell asleep at the piano. He woke up because his head hit the music stand as he nodded off. I got a video, but he broke into my phone and deleted it."

Jamie let out a loud guffaw at that, but Zeppelin flushed and her eyes widened again. She ran another nervous hand through her hair. "Where is–" Jamie cleared his throat loudly and shook his head. Zeppelin looked confused, but cut off.

"Can you get the baby, Zep?" he said quickly.

"Jamie, don't," Jude chastised. "It's okay."

"No, really, someone should get him," Jamie said as the baby's cries pitched higher. "But I can do that," he said as Jude shot him a look.

"You were going to ask where Tommy is," Jude said as Jamie went down the hall to Michael's room.

"Uh, yeah, weren't you both planning on coming? Is he here?" She looked a little uncomfortable. Though Zeppelin's general confidence had increased a lot since Jude had known her, she was still skittish around Tommy, who, a couple months after Jude left for London, had apparently come storming into NBR drunk and had quite an impressive shouting match with Jamie. He'd apologized profusely for it later, but had left a lasting impression on Zeppelin. They were okay now, but Tommy still had the ability to easily fluster Zeppelin with one look. Which, of course, he subtly-but-intentionally did every chance he got.

Jude pursed her lips at the memory, and answered, "He's in London. Jamie's trying not to make me upset by mentioning it, but I'm fine. Tommy and I needed a little break. It's not a big deal." She managed a smile.

Zeppelin looked shocked, but tried to hide it. "Oh. Okay, then. Tell him hi for me? Or…" She trailed off, looking unsure.

Jude's smile held. "Yeah, I'll do that." He had said he'd call her. She wondered if maybe she should have texted him to let him know she'd arrived safely in Toronto.

The baby's crying quieted and stopped. Zeppelin smiled wide. "Jamie's really good with him," she said, looking down the hall. "He's way better than I am at getting Fee to stop crying."

"Fee?" Jude asked.

"Oh. Short for Felix. Jamie calls him Michael, but I started saying Fee." She laughed a little. "I think it annoys Jamie."

"Tommy used to call Caroline 'Linny', and it drove me insane at first, but eventually I found myself using it all the time." Jude smiled a little sadly.

"Are you okay?" Zeppelin asked gently, putting a hand on Jude's shoulder.

Jude put her hand over Zeppelin's, briefly. "Yeah, Zep. I'm fine."

"If you need anything…"

"I should be saying that to you." Jude forced a laugh. "Seriously, it's okay."

Jamie came out then with Michael. He smiled as he approached Jude. "Someone's excited to meet you!" Jude felt a spike of pain in her gut for a moment at the sight of the baby in Jamie's arms. She turned away to take the hand sanitizer Zeppelin proffered, but Jamie must have seen the pain in her expression, because he looked at her cautiously. "You ready?"

"Yeah, of course." She held out her arms. "Give him here." Jude realized she was holding her breath as Jamie placed the baby in her arms. Michael looked a little like Caroline, but only in the way that all babies look alike. He was bigger than she was as a newborn, and with surprisingly thick dark hair, where Caroline's had been blonde and practically nonexistent at first. "Hi Michael," Jude cooed. "Hi baby." Michael squirmed and fussed in her arms, so she bounced and rocked him a little. She felt tears pricking her eyes, and decided not to fight them. "Hi baby," she whispered again as the tears started to fall.

"Jude," Jamie's voice was soft, "you okay?"

"Yeah." She looked up at him and smiled, though she was crying pretty hard now. "I'm good, Jame."

"I can take him," Zeppelin said gently.

"No, really, I'm good," Jude insisted. The tears weren't accompanied by their usual aching pain. Instead it felt cleansing somehow, like exhaling, like she was letting something go.

"You're crying," Jamie said carefully.

"Yeah." Jude laughed through her tears. "I'm fine, though, it's… it's good." She looked back down at the baby in her arms, staring up at her with his big, unfocused hazel eyes. She smiled back up at Jamie and Zeppelin and wiped her cheeks with one of her sleeves. "He's really beautiful. Congrats, you guys."

* * *

 **A/N:** So this chapter is not so sad as the last couple, I hope. Jude is trying.

It's funny, a few years ago when I first started this story, I wondered to myself if it was unrealistic to have Jamie and Zeppelin, who are about 23, married and having a baby. (Zeppelin's age is not specified canonically, but Jamie is a little older than Jude, who is 22 here, and I always had the impression Zep was around the same age as Jamie, though possibly a year or two older since she's living on her own in the 4th season.) It seemed unrealistically young, but now I am actually that age (I turn 23 in May), and while it still seems _super_ young to me, tbh, I have like a billion friends around my age who are getting married, and a few of them have kids now too. Honestly, it seems like every couple days another one of my Facebook friends gets engaged. Meanwhile, I am eating instant mac and cheese in my dorm room. Being in your early 20s is really weird. (Mac and cheese is good though, I have no complaints about that part.)


	33. Chapter 33

**A/N:** Hi! Welcome to the Surprise Monday Update. This is happening largely because I'm giving a presentation tomorrow about the induction of ectopic eyes via targeted gene expression in _Drosophila,_ and I desperately needed a break from hours of looking at super gross scanning electron micrographs of fruit flies with eyes growing out of their legs and wings and wherever. It's cool but super freaky, some real mad scientist stuff. Google it at your own risk. Plus, fly eyes are compound eyes so they're really gross to begin with? Excuse me while I shudder forever. Anyway, here's some fanfiction.

* * *

As the day went on, Jamie and Zeppelin gradually stopped looking at Jude like she was about to fall to pieces at any moment. In the middle of the afternoon, Jamie fell asleep while Jude was talking, and Zeppelin woke him gently, saying, "Just go take a nap, hon," and he reluctantly agreed, heading upstairs. Zeppelin stayed, but she was nodding off too, and Jude finally convinced her that she could go sleep too, promising to wake her when Michael needed to be fed.

When Zeppelin left, Jude laid the swaddled, sleeping baby on a blanket on the floor and lay down with her head next to him. "Hi there, baby boy," she said softly. "It's just you and me for a while." She watched him and let herself picture Caroline, imagine for a second that her baby was just somewhere close by with Tommy, that they'd come to Toronto with their seven-month-old daughter to meet Michael. The daydream was pointless and painful, but she let herself indulge it for a moment anyway.

"I had a baby too, you know," she whispered, stroking Michael's soft, feathery hair as gently as she could, careful not to wake him. "I had a baby girl. You would have been friends, I think." She thought about calling Tommy, but she worried that if he hadn't called her by now it was because he'd decided he didn't want to talk to her, so she compromised, texting, _"Been in Toronto for a few hrs. Jamie and zep say hi. Thought I'd let you know I made it safe or whatev"._ She typed and deleted a heart three times before sending the text without it.

His response took a few minutes, and it was disappointing when it came. All it said was _"good"._ She had hoped he'd call her, and instead received a one-word text. She sighed and tried again. She took a picture of herself and the baby, sending it to Tommy with the message, _"here with this sleepy lil guy."_ She thought about adding "wish you were here" but decided against it. She didn't need to guilt him about this when it was all her fault in the first place.

The icon that let her know he was typing out a response flashed for a long time, then disappeared. No reply. She felt a pang of sorrow, but Michael woke up and started to fuss next to her. She picked him up and bounced him until he quieted, grateful for the distraction.

.

When Sadie and Kwest entered the house that evening, Sadie was laughing at something Kwest had said. When they looked at each other, Jude caught the sparks from all the way across the room. Kwest's smile fell slightly when he saw Jude, sadness creeping into his expression. Jude tried to pretend she hadn't noticed, and walked up to hug him, saying, "Hey, Kwest! It's good to see you."

"You too, superstar," he said, hugging her tightly. When they pulled back he gave her a sad look, saying quietly, "How you holding up?"

"I'm fine, Kwest." She shrugged.

"Look, I'm really sorry I didn't say anything when T told me. I really thought he would–"

"Kwest, I'm fine," she said more firmly. "It's okay. He did what he had to do. I get it. Please, can we just not talk about it right now?"

Kwest looked at her for another long moment, seeming to search her face for something, then he nodded. "Okay." He reached out and squeezed her shoulder before joining Sadie and Jamie in the kitchen.

.

As they ate the meal that Sadie had prepared, Jude was unable to ignore the practically tangible chemistry between Kwest and her sister. She'd noticed some sparks between them in London, too, though she'd been very preoccupied during that visit, but she was pretty sure it had reached another level since then. Finally, as they were finishing up dessert, she was unable to contain herself and asked, "So Kwest, tell me about this girl you're seeing."

Sadie shot her a glare, but Kwest looked confused. "What?" he asked with a slight frown.

Jude raised her eyebrows. "Sadie mentioned that you were dating someone. I was just wondering who."

Kwest looked over at Sadie, then back at Jude, looking very surprised. "Oh, that's… Really? I'm not seeing anyone."

"I didn't mean like a serious relationship or anything." Sadie's cheeks were flushed. "I just told Jude that you'd gone on a few dates in the last couple weeks. I really didn't mean to make a big deal out of it, it just kind of came up."

"Dates?" Kwest still looked surprised. "What do you mean? Sadie, I haven't gone on a date in… God, I don't even know. Two months? Three?"

Jude raised her eyebrows higher. "So you are single, then?"

Sadie looked confused. She shook her head. "Wait, no, Kwest, you went out to dinner with someone, multiple times, you told me about it. Her name was Kailey or Kayla or something."

Jamie piped up. "Kylie Edleson? She's a producer, recently left Cardinal Records and tweeted some anti-corporate stuff that got our attention. She's super talented, we've been trying to recruit her to NBR for a while. Is that who you mean?"

Sadie gave Kwest a surprised look and he returned it, saying, "Sadie, I really never meant to imply that those were dates. It was all work-related. I didn't realize I hadn't said… I didn't know you thought that."

"So then you're _both_ single." Jude was grinning. Sadie shot her another glare.

"I should go check on the baby," Zeppelin said suddenly. "Uh, if we're done here then Jude and Jamie can probably wash dishes."

"I can do that," Sadie said quickly, starting to stand up from her chair.

"Sit, Sadie," Jamie insisted, standing and starting to grab plates. "You guys cooked, we'll clean."

"Yeah, you guys stay here," Jude said, unable to contain her huge grin. When she and Jamie walked into the kitchen, Jude set down the dishes and turned to him. "I did it! They're totally going to get back together!"

"Again with playing matchmaker?" Jamie joked.

"I'm pretty sure I'm two for two with those guys! Oh this is the greatest!"

Jamie looked skeptical. "Didn't that first time kind of backfire? I seem to remember that Kwest walked out without eating the dinner we so sneakily prepared for them."

"Uh, no, because they got back together the next day, so that's technically a win."

He rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. "Whatever you say, Cupid."

Jude, as subtly as she could, poked her head through the door to the dining room, just in time to see Kwest reach out and pull Sadie towards him, kissing her. Jude pulled her head back into the kitchen quickly and gave Jamie an excited look, saying in a loud whisper, "He kissed her! They're kissing!"

Jamie returned her expression of excitement, and said, "We're two for two!"

"You're damn right we are!" Jude exclaimed, giving Jamie a high five.

He smiled at her, tilting his head. "I missed you, Jude."

She smiled too, and stepped forward to wrap her arms around his waist. "I missed you too, Jame."

When they pulled back, Jamie looked more serious. "Hey, I just wanted to say… I think it's awesome that after everything you've been through you're still you."

"Uh… who else would I be?" she tried to make a joke, even though she felt herself getting choked up.

"Okay, I just mean… I think it's awesome that after all these years, after everything, you're still my best friend. I know it probably wasn't easy today, to be here, but it really means a lot that you came."

"Of course," Jude said, pulling him into another hug. "Congratulations, Jamie."

.

As Jude said goodnight to Sadie and headed to the guest room, she pulled out her phone and texted Tommy, _"so Kwest and Sadie are back together."_ It was almost 1 AM in London, so she didn't really expect a response, but his reply was swift. _"haha really?"_

Jude wanted to call him, but she hesitated, worried again that he hadn't called or texted because he didn't want to talk to her. Eventually her desire to hear his voice won out and she dialed. He answered with a soft, "Hey."

"Hey. Sorry, I know it's late there. I can call back tomorrow."

"It's okay," he reassured her. "I was up."

"Pain?" she asked, feeling a twinge of worry.

"No," he sighed, then added, in a voice so quiet she barely heard, "At least not the kind you mean."

She didn't know what to say but, "Oh," so they sat in silence for a minute. Eventually she said, "You said you'd call." She tried to sound nonchalant, keep the hurt out of her voice, but didn't quite succeed.

"I know, I'm sorry. But I, uh, didn't know if you'd want to hear from me. Thought I'd give you some time."

"No, Tommy, I get it," she sighed. "We weren't okay, we were pretending. If you think that leaving is what you need to do, then I…" she felt tears pricking her eyes, and took a deep breath, "Then I want you to do it."

"I meant it when I said this is temporary," he insisted.

"I know," she whispered, wiping tears from her cheeks.

"I meant it when I said that I love you." His voice was soft and strained.

She sighed again. "I know."

They were silent for another long minute before Tommy said, more brightly. "So, Kwest and Sadie?"

She smiled. "Yeah."

"About damn time"

Jude laughed. "That's what I said."

He laughed too, and Jude felt a little lighter, like maybe things were going to be okay.

* * *

 **A/N:** I never liked Sadie and Darius as a long-term thing, for reasons I think I've gone into in some detail before (if not on here, then definitely on tumblr), but having Kwest and Sadie get back together was actually never my plan. In my unfinished epilogue of _Lost and Found_ , I actually had Sadie engaged to someone else entirely. It was a surprise to me when I was writing this. The scene of them on the plane happened and I was like …oh, so apparently _they're_ getting back together… Writing is weird like that sometimes. Your characters don't always do what you expect them to do at the start of a thing.

Reviews that I can read instead of thinking about the ommatidia and interommatidial bristles of ectopic frankenfly eyes would be very appreciated!


	34. Chapter 34

Jude's sense of dread built more and more as she got off the plane in London at the end of the week. The reality she thought she'd accepted, that Tommy was not going to be there when she got home, was coming closer and closer, and she was having a harder time holding it together the closer she got to home. Her fingers shook as she pulled out her keys to unlock the front door, and she took a deep breath as she walked into the empty apartment. For some reason, some part of her had expected the apartment to look somehow different in Tommy's absence, but of course it didn't. She knew some of his clothes would be missing from the closet, and his keys weren't on the hook by the door, but his coffee mug was sitting by the sink in the kitchen, and he'd left one of his jackets on the back of a chair. She reached out to pick it up, feeling more than a little pathetic as she lifted it to her face and inhaled the faint smell of him. As she put the jacket back down, she saw an envelope sitting on the table. Her name was written on the front in Tommy's familiar handwriting. Her chest tightened as she opened it and took out the short letter.

 _Jude,_  
 _I know you told me not to quote your own lyrics at you, but you said it better than I ever could:_

 _I'm not sure I'll find words to cover the hurt  
That I see in your eyes, but I gotta try  
I know rocks turn to sand, and hearts can change hands  
And you're not to blame when the sky fills with rain  
But if we stay or walk away, there's one thing that's true  
I still love you_

 _I know you're probably angry at me, but I hope you can understand why I have to do this. More than anything, I hope you know how much I love you. Nothing will ever change that._

 _We're going to be okay.  
Love,  
Tom_

Jude wiped the tears from her face and folded up the letter, placing it back on the table and pulling out her phone, texting Tommy, _"I do understand. I love you too"_

… ... … ... …

As difficult as it was adjusting to the emptiness of the apartment without Tommy, it hadn't been what Jude dreaded most about coming back. Although Tommy's accident had been horrible and the recovery had been incredibly rough on both of them, it had at least offered her some temporary reprieve from Bermondsey, from the possibility of running into Benjamin and having to face Nora's plan for them to work together. Now that she was back from Toronto, now that Tommy was gone, back to work, even, she had no more excuses.

She met with Nora the morning after she got back to London. Walking through the building to her boss's office, she felt strange, out of place and conspicuous. She could feel the weight of a room-full of judgmental stares that probably weren't really there. The last time she'd felt this way was returning to work a few days after Alexander had broken off their engagement. She tried to remember how it felt, to be that version of herself. It wasn't even that long ago, but it felt like a different life, a different Jude. Though she hadn't known it at the time, that Jude had been only days away from reuniting with Tommy, from beginning what became the happiest time of her life. And now all of it was gone again, and it was all her fault.

She took a deep breath before raising her hand to knock on Nora's slightly open office door. "Nora?" she asked, as brightly as she could muster.

"Come in," came her boss's response, and Jude opened the door all the way. "Hello, Jude. You're right on time," she said with a smile.

"That happens occasionally, even with me," Jude joked, though her voice sounded tense even to her own ears. She stepped into the office, shutting the door behind her.

"How are you doing?" Nora asked, looking grave as Jude sat in the chair across from her.

"Uh… I'm fine. I'm… yeah, I'm good."

Nora's look of concern deepened and she looked at Jude as if studying her. After a moment she asked, tentatively, "You and Tom? Are you two… okay?"

Jude felt tears threatening and bit the inside of her cheek as she nodded. "We're okay. It's been… hard, but we're making it work, I think. We're still together, if that's what you're asking. Why? Is the media ask–"

"No," Nora cut her off, gently. "No, nothing like that. I was only asking out of concern for you both."

"We're okay," Jude repeated.

"I can imagine, such a profound loss, and then the accident… That would put a strain on any relationship."

The knot in Jude's stomach tightened. "It's actually a little more complicated that that."

"Love always is." Nora gave her a little smile, and she tried to return it, though it must've looked forced, because Nora looked sad again. "Well," she said in a more business-like tone, sitting up straighter and putting her clasped hands on the desk in front of her, "let's talk about work then, shall we? I understand if you'd like to keep your music on hold a bit longer, given all that's happened, but if you would like to continue with plans for an album, I'm happy to find you an engineer or a co-producer to work with, at least until Tom returns." Jude felt sick, and must've looked it, because Nora quickly said, "Or not. As I said, I'm happy to let you keep your own music on the back burner, if that's what you'd like to do. I'm sure Benjamin would be overjoyed to have you back. That single was genius. He's become rather popular as a result, even though a tour for him to open in has proven elusive. Either way, with you back behind the board for him, I'm sure an even bigger hit wouldn't be far behind."

"Oh God…" Jude murmured, her heart sinking to her feet.

"Is everything all right?" Nora sounded surprised. When Jude just squeezed her eyes shut, Nora spoke more sharply. "What is it?"

This was it. She couldn't put off telling Nora any longer. She tried to think of Tommy, tried to believe this was how she could save their relationship. She opened her eyes. "Nora… Here's the thing, I… I wasn't completely honest with you before, about why I didn't want to keep working with Benjamin."

"What?" Nora frowned. "I don't understand. You told me you wanted to work on your own music, you and I talked about the possibility of a duet, you mentioned you'd started writing again, that you felt ready."

"That was… a lie. I haven't been writing, I was never ready. There's another reason I can't work with him anymore."

When she didn't continue, Nora prompted sharply, "And that reason is?"

Jude looked at her boss, and she felt tears threatening again, a lump in her throat. "Benjamin kissed me," she said finally. Nora barely reacted, just a slight deepening of her frown. Jude continued quietly, "And I… didn't stop him."

Nora's expression stayed mostly the same, though Jude noticed her jaw clench. When she spoke her voice was tight, anger carefully controlled. "What are you saying?"

"We… I made a mistake." Jude's voice cracked a little on the last word, but she vowed not to let herself cry in front of her boss.

"You're saying," Nora enunciated, "you had sex." All Jude could do was nod, and a look of comprehension crossed Nora's face. "Tom knows."

"Yes," Jude confirmed softly.

"Ah," Nora said, pursing her lips. "Well, I suppose things are making a bit more sense now." She sighed. "You said you were still together. Are you really, or was that a lie as well?"

"No!" Jude cried, then spoke more evenly. "I mean, no, it wasn't a lie, yes, we are still together. We're working things out."

Nora raised her eyebrows. "But it is why he left."

"He's coming back!" Jude insisted fiercely.

Nora put her hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Okay, Jude, alright." She sighed. "Then I will find another producer for Benjamin, and another artist for you." She spoke with a tone of finality, and Jude could tell she was about to be dismissed.

"Actually, Nora… That's not really going to be enough."

Nora's eyebrows shot up. "I beg your pardon?"

Her tone was threatening, and Jude wanted nothing more than to back down, to call it a win that Nora had agreed to let her stop producing him. But she thought of Tommy, the way it would feel to finally have him back and then to be at work and run into Benjamin. She couldn't take the risk of any more strain on their relationship, couldn't take the risk that she could lose Tommy for good. "I can't work like this. I can't work with him here."

Nora narrowed her eyes. "You're asking me to give up my promising new artist because you, what, can't resist his charms?"

"No!" Jude protested. "Nothing like _that_ , God! He tried to blackmail me!"

Nora looked incredulous. "He what?"

"After… After it happened, I told him that we couldn't work together anymore, that that single would be the last, and he told me that if I tried to leave him as producer, he would go to the tabloids and tell them what happened."

Anger flashed in Nora's eyes. "He said _what?"_

"I told him it would be a horrible career move, that he'd alienate his audience. I begged him not to do it, but also I told him that I wouldn't work with a gun to my head, so–"

"And yet," Nora cut her off, sharply, "you didn't come to me. You didn't feel that my artists threatening one another's careers was something I'd like to know about?"

"I tried to tell you," Jude said, pleadingly. "I was going to, and then I… I chickened out. I was going to tell you the next day, but then Tommy got hurt and… I know I should've told you about this when it happened. But it wouldn't have changed the conversation we're having now, or the fact that I _cannot_ have him here."

"You're asking me to give up something that could be worth _millions._ You do realize that," Nora snapped. "You are asking _me_ to pay for _your_ indiscretions."

"And I _so_ regret those indiscretions. It was a huge mistake, the biggest mistake I've ever made in my life. Nora, you have to believe me, if I could go back and change what happened between me and him… But I can't. Tommy and I are trying to move forward, and we're not going to be able to do that if he's still here at work." She gave her boss a pleading look.

"I don't believe that's my problem," Nora said coldly.

"Then I can't stay with Bermondsey," Jude snapped.

"I beg your pardon?" Nora looked shocked. "Are you suggesting that I have to choose between the two of you? Are you _actually_ trying to extort me, Miss Harrison?"

"It's not _extortion_." She fought not to roll her eyes at the overly dramatic term. "It's just that I can't stay here if Benjamin does."

"You cannot just decide to leave. You are under contract." Nora was getting angrier by the minute, a flush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks. "And I can sue you if you try to break that contract."

"My contract is up in less than three months." Jude almost couldn't believe she was really doing this, that she was actually leveraging her own contract to get Nora to drop Benjamin, but she thought of Tommy and she didn't waiver. "How much do you think you can force out of me in three months? Half a single? If Benjamin stays, I don't renew. I won't. I can't." Nora glared at her, and she felt a surge of fear as the silence between them stretched on. "Nora," Jude said, more softly, pleading again. "I really don't want to leave. I want to renew, I've been planning to renew. You have been _so_ good to me, to us, especially since..." She shut her eyes for a brief moment before continuing, "I'm so grateful to you, and to Bermondsey. But please try to understand, I _can't_ lose Tommy. I would do anything to fix things with him. That's all I'm trying to do. Please, Nora. Please."

After another long, tense moment Nora said stiffly, "Fine. I will see what I can do."

Relief flooded her, and she let out the breath she didn't even realize she'd been holding. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

"You are damned lucky," Nora snapped coldly, "that your last album recently made triple platinum. That is the _only_ reason I did not fire you on the spot for trying something like this, because your music has proven very valuable. This is not a favour," she hissed the last word.

"I understand," Jude said, her eyes filling with tears, the relief and the stress and Nora's anger an overwhelming mix, hitting her hard. "Thank you anyway." She tried and failed to stop a few tears from spilling over.

Nora regarded her for a moment longer, and Jude thought she saw something in her boss's expression, a twitch at the corner of her mouth, some flash of sympathy, a sign of softening, but her voice was still hard when she spoke. "Go home," she said. "I think that's quite enough for one day. I will be in touch about Benjamin."

Jude wanted to say something else, to thank her again, or to apologize, but Nora's expression made it very clear that anything else would be the last straw, so Jude just nodded and stood, leaving the office.


	35. Chapter 35

Jude's hands shook a little as she typed out the text. A tear fell from her cheek onto her hand.

[ From: Jude ]  
[ 13:35 ]  
120 Days

[ From: Jude ]  
[ 13:37 ]  
I did the math a while ago

She sat on the couch with her legs pulled up to her chest, forehead resting on her knees, fingers curled around her phone, crying silently as she waited for Tommy's response.

[ From: Tommy ]  
[ 13:42 ]  
Uhhh 120 days til what?

[ From: Tommy ]  
[ 13:42 ]  
And lol you doing math never thought id see the day

[ From: Jude ]  
[ 13:43 ]  
Dont joke

[ From: Jude ]  
[ 13:43 ]  
Its how long she was alive. 120 days

[ From: Tommy ]  
[ 13:45 ]  
What the hell Jude. I don't need to know the number of days. I don't WANT to know

[ From: Tommy ]  
[ 13:47 ]  
Why would you even send me that

[ From: Jude ]  
[ 13:48 ]  
Because today its been 122 days

A minute later, her phone rang. Tommy. She answered with a soft, "Hey," and he returned it, but was unable to say anything else for a long time. They sat in silence, feeling one another's grief through the phone.

Eventually, he broke the silence. "You're saying… she's been gone longer than she was here."

"Yes," Jude whispered through her tears.

"That's so… fucked up."

"How did this happen?" she asked quietly. "How did we end up here?"

"I don't know."

Jude let out a little sob. "We were so happy."

His voice sounded choked when he spoke again. "I know."

Neither of them said anything for a long time. Finally Jude said, "I, uh… There's something else I've been meaning to tell you."

"Oh." His voice was thick, and he cleared his throat. "Um… okay?"

"I told Nora. About… what happened with Benjamin."

When she didn't speak after a long moment, he said, "Okay…" again.

"I told her about how he threatened to go to the tabloids, how he tried to blackmail me into producing him… She wasn't happy. So what I wanted to tell you was that I think he's leaving. I'm pretty sure Nora's going to release him from his contract. She's still working out details, and she's not happy about doing it, but I begged her, I told her that the only thing that matters to me is being with you, making this work. I told her to choose, me or him. She wasn't happy, but she… she chose me."

"You leveraged yourself?" Tommy asked, sounding surprised. "You risked your contract like that?"

She tried to brush it off. "I'm the better investment, and I knew that."

"Still…"

"There was a scary moment," Jude admitted. "She was so angry… I thought maybe she'd think she was calling my bluff."

"Would she have been?" he asked quietly. "Were you bluffing?"

"No," she said honestly. "My career is important, I love Bermondsey, but if the choice was you or my contract, then there's no choice. I want us to get past this, Tommy. I know we can't do that if we're going to be seeing him at work every day. If Nora had insisted on keeping him instead, I'd have left if that's what it took."

"Oh, Jude…"

"I love you," she said with a little sob. "Tommy, I love you so much. All I want is for us to be okay again."

Tommy sighed. "Look, I'm still trying to–"

"I know," she cut him off, sniffling. "I know, I get why you left. I'm not trying to pressure you or anything. It's okay that you need more time, I just wanted you to know that when you get back, he'll be gone. He won't be part of our lives anymore. I want you to know that I would do anything to make this right."

There was a long moment of silence before Tommy softly said, "That means a lot, girl. It really does."

"You can take your time. I get it. I can wait, if that's what you need."

"It's only six weeks until tour is done." He sounded sad.

"Six weeks," Jude repeated softly. After a moment she whispered, "I wish… I would give anything to be able to take it back. You know I would." She started to cry again.

He sighed, "Jude…"

"I just want to go back." She let out a sob. "Tommy, I want to go back."

"I know." His voice broke.

"If we had known, if we had taken her to the hospital sooner, if–"

"Don't," he begged. "Don't go there, Jude, please." Jude let out another sob, clutching her phone, and Tommy's voice was soft and strained when he said, "It doesn't help, girl. You can't think like that, it doesn't help."

"I miss you. I miss Caroline, I miss…" another sob tore through her, "I miss _us._ "

"It's gonna be okay," Tommy said in as soothing a voice as he could manage. "It's going to be alright."

"I'm sorry," Jude said, trying to control her crying. "I'm so sorry."

"I know. I get it. Breathe, girl. We're okay."

She took a couple of deep breaths to slow the crying, then said, "Sorry, I didn't mean to freak out on you."

"You don't need to apologize."

"It's just… God. I keep thinking maybe it's getting easier, and then…"

"It hits you again," Tommy finished. "Yeah, I get that."

"122 days," she said quietly after a moment.

"But we made it through them. And we're going to make it another 122. Together."

"You mean that?" Jude asked, feeling tears threatening again.

"I'm… trying really hard to believe it," he said with a sigh.

"That's something, I guess." She sniffled.

"I am trying, Jude."

"I know, Tommy."

"I want to move on, move forward, I really, honestly do. I'm trying."

"I know," she repeated. "And thank you for that. I know I don't deserve it."

"Don't say that." He sighed again. "Look, I… I love you, okay?"

"I love you too." She tried to focus on the fact that he was able to say he loved her now, as he hadn't before deciding to leave, and not on his hesitation before he did.

"We're gonna be okay," Tommy said softly.

Jude closed her eyes, trying for a moment to picture him smiling, picture them happy, and to believe that the image could come true. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then asked, "So… How's tour?" She tried to sound brighter, casual.

"Oh, uh…" He sounded a little surprised, but he answered. "It's good. It's weird, honestly, being basically a roadie, but I also have enough experience with the sound stuff that I've kind of been promoted by default."

"So you get to boss people around?" she teased.

"A little," he admitted, and she could hear the smile in his voice. "Maybe more than a little."

"So you're loving it, then!"

Tommy laughed. "You know me too well."

Jude laughed too. The knot in her chest loosened a little, and the idea that they might be able to be happy together again seemed just a little bit more real.

* * *

 **A/N:** Short chapter means extra update, there will be a new chapter Saturday.


	36. Chapter 36

Jude got the call from Nora a week later as she sat with her guitar and tried to write. Nora said she'd made a decision regarding Benjamin's contract, and that Jude should come in to the studio right away. She did not ask "could you come in," instead demanding that Jude arrive in the next hour. The "or else" was implied.

When she got to Nora's office, the door was open, the desk chair empty. "Hey, Jude," came a voice from behind her as she walked into the office

She yelped, startled, and jumped about a foot in the air. "Jesus, Benjamin!" Jude cried when she turned to see him leaning casually against the wall of the office. "You gave me a fucking heart attack."

"Sorry," he apologized, standing up straight, away from the wall. "Didn't mean to startle you. I thought you saw me."

As the shock faded, Jude frowned. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Benjamin had been looking at her with a mostly sad expression, but at her question he looked angry. "What am _I_ doing here? I'm trying to save my fucking career, since you're clearly so intent on destroying it."

"Excuse me?" Jude asked incredulously. "The way I remember it, _you_ are the one who threatened to destroy _my_ career."

"That's not fair!" he protested. "Jude, I was… I was hurt. I was just reacting to–"

"Reacting by threatening my career _and_ my relationship. Maybe you don't realize how _low_ it is to threaten to go to the tabloids, Benjamin, but in this business the media is vicious. Especially to women. It is a constant fear. If you had–"

"But I didn't!" he cut her off. "Obviously I should never have said it, I should never have tried to threaten you, that was so, so stupid of me, and I'm sorry _,_ alright? But I've already apologized for it, I promised you I wouldn't tell anyone, and I _haven't_ done. I did nothing to deserve what you've done to me."

"What the hell are you talking about? I haven't done anything to you."

Benjamin looked hurt and incredulous. "You asked—no, _begged_ —my _boss_ to _sack_ me. From what I understand, you went out of your way, actually risked your _own_ contract, just to try and lose me my career."

Jude's heart sank. Somehow, she hadn't even considered the impact this would all have on Benjamin. She barely thought of him at all when she'd been arguing with Nora. All her thoughts had been of her and Tommy. When she had thought of Benjamin, it had been in something of an abstract sense, as a reminder of her mistakes and an obstacle to her future happiness, not as a young and talented guy just trying to make it in the biz. She hadn't even considered the effect this would have on his career. She felt awful. "Oh, God. I'm so sorry. I swear I wasn't trying to–"

"What else could you have been trying to do?!" he protested. "I'm sorry for kissing you, is that what you want me to say? I shouldn't have done it, but then you kissed me back! This was not something I did _to_ you, this was something _we_ did, the both of us! You don't get to hate me for this!" He was becoming increasingly agitated, practically shouting.

"I know, I know, Benjamin." Jude held her hands up. "I don't blame you for what happened. I swear, I wasn't trying to lose you your career, I wasn't trying to hurt you. I was just trying to save my relationship, you have to understand–"

"Save your relationship at _my_ expense! So I was, what? Collateral damage, to you? This is my life, Jude! This is my career!"

"I know, I didn't even think. I'm so, so sorry. Look, I'll do whatever I can to help you find a new contract, okay? You're so talented, someone else will sign you in a heartbeat. I'll put in a good word for you anywhere you want. I know A&R people, my sister works in publicity so she has contacts, I'll find you a new contract somewhere else, I promise."

"I don't need your help," he snapped. "For your information, I already _have_ offers."

"Oh, well that's great!" Jude said, relieved.

"I shouldn't _have_ to go with my second choice, Jude! I shouldn't have to start over! I do not deserve to lose my contract here!"

"That's debatable," Nora's cold voice came from the door, and Jude and Benjamin both turned to her. She walked behind her desk. "Sit," she commanded them both, and they complied. After they were seated, Nora sat too, putting her elbows on the desk and putting her steepled fingers over her mouth. She regarded them cooly for a long moment before saying, "I've made a decision. I am releasing Benjamin from his Bermondsey contract." Jude sighed in relief, Benjamin's jaw clenched in anger. "But there are a number of conditions," Nora continued. "Benjamin," she turned to him, "there is a non-compete clause in your contract, which I will void under the condition that you sign a non-disclosure agreement broadly covering any information about the personal lives of any of your colleagues here at Bermondsey. If a word of what happened here gets to the media, I will sue you, and you will lose."

Benjamin swallowed hard, and nodded. "Understood."

"Otherwise, you are free to pursue contracts with any other label, although I should let you know that I advise you not come to me for a reference. The words 'un-trustworthy' and 'cutthroat' do not a good recommendation make."

Jude actually flinched at that, and Benjamin looked furious, though he controlled his anger, saying "understood," again, through clenched teeth.

"Benjamin…" Jude said softly.

"Don't," he snapped.

She sighed and turned back to Nora. "I'm sorry for this, I am. But thank you. I really needed–"

"Not so fast." Nora cut her off. "There are conditions for you, too. I am not acquiescing just like that."

"What?" Jude asked, surprised.

"Maybe you are ignorant to how these things work, Miss Harrison, but this company invested significant time and resources into Mr. Kite. I am not letting him go without recouping as much of that investment as I can."

"The single–"

"Not enough." Nora cut her off again. She looked between the two of them and said, "You two will be doing a duet."

Jude cried, "What?" at the same time as Benjamin said, "Wait, seriously?"

"A duet," Nora continued, raising her voice a little, "released through Bermondsey Records. A final attempt to get my money's worth from the both of you."

"I have a song!" Benjamin interjected, sounding excited. "It's something new I've been working on for the last few weeks, but it was missing something, so I started putting harmonies to it this morning. It would be perfect, it'll sound amazing in Jude's voice. Can the song be released under my name, with Jude as featured?"

Nora nodded. "That would be acceptable."

"No!" Jude protested. "No that would most definitely _not_ be acceptable! I am not doing a duet with him! No way!"

"Jude!" Benjamin cried, looking hurt. "What happened to doing whatever you can to help me save my career? This is what you can do to help me!"

"It defeats the purpose!" Jude cried. "Nora, you can't do this. Please."

"This is not a negotiation," Nora said firmly.

"The whole point is that I can't work with him! We can't release a duet together, there's no way, I won't do it!"

"These are my terms," Nora snapped. "I know you think you have all of the power here, Miss Harrison, but I assure you that is not the case."

"What if I refuse?" Her eyes were wide. "You can't force me to record anything."

Nora's lips pressed into a thin line. "You're correct. I won't force you. But these are my conditions for releasing Benjamin from his contract. If you refuse them, I would be happy to keep him on as an artist."

"Wait, really?" Benjamin cut in, but they ignored him.

"Please don't do this," Jude pleaded softly with Nora.

"You did this, not me. These are your choices," Nora said coldly. "You can do a duet, you can both stay under contract here, or you may leave as you threatened to do, but like I said, this is no longer a negotiation."

Jude pressed her lips into a hard line, glaring at Nora for a long moment before saying through clenched teeth, "Fine. Duet it is."

* * *

 **A/N:** I created the character of Benjamin Ray Kite two and a half years before I wrote this scene (this was actually the second to last scene I wrote for the story) but it wasn't until I had Nora call him "Mr. Kite" in this chapter that I realized I had created a character whose name is a Beatles reference (as in, "being for the benefit of…") I did not do that to be clever, but it accidentally ended up being sort of clever.

Also, if I don't update Wednesday it will be because I'm out of town visiting my sisters for Thanksgiving. I should have time and wifi, but if I don't, that's why.


	37. Chapter 37

**A/N:** Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the states! I'm updating this from my phone, excuse a lack of proofreading

* * *

A few nights later, Jude received a text from Tommy as she was finishing eating dinner that read, _"hey can you call me when you get this?"_

Jude had spent the rest of the exhausting week desperately trying to think of a way she could convince Nora to change her mind, even as they started scheduling rehearsals and recording sessions for the duet. She'd been wanting to call Tommy all week, aching to hear his voice, but she'd been trying to figure out how to tell him about the duet in a way that wouldn't just make him angry. She put her plate in the sink and dialed Tommy's number as she sat down on the couch.

"Hey, girl," Tommy said by way of greeting.

"Hey. Got your text. What's up?"

"Nothing urgent. We haven't talked in a while. Too long. I miss you."

Jude smiled. "I miss you too."

"I've been meaning to tell you, I saw the paparazzi pics of you from a few days ago. I like the short hair."

"Oh, thanks, yeah. I was wondering if you'd see it at some point. I thought about sending you a picture when I got it cut, but I never did. Em's upset I did it without talking to her, but everything has been kind of crazy and I really needed a change, I guess."

"Well, it looks good." He lowered his voice a little. "It's actually very hot." Jude laughed, but Tommy continued, sounding more serious. "You know, Jude, I was thinking… Maybe I'll come see it in person."

Jude felt a jolt through her chest, her heart clenching. "You mean come back to London? It's only been a month, I thought this leg of the tour was two months."

"It is, but I, uh, I have a couple of doctor's appointments there next week. I come back Monday morning. I didn't tell you about it before because I thought it might get too complicated, but I thought maybe… I'll only be in town for two nights, and I've committed to doing this whole leg of the tour, but I thought maybe you could come with me for the rest."

Jude sucked in a sharp breath. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"I'm saying I miss you like crazy," he said softly. "I'm saying… I guess I'm saying that I love you, and that I don't think I want to be apart anymore."

"Really?" she whispered, tears pricking her eyes. "You mean that?"

"I just want all of this to be in the past. What happened…" He sighed. "I get that you made a mistake. A big one, yeah, but he's not part of our lives anymore, and it doesn't have to keep getting in the way of us."

Jude's heart sank. This was the worst possible timing for her to break the news about the duet, just as it looked like she was about to get Tommy back, but she didn't have a choice. He would find out soon enough anyway. "About that, I'm really sor–"

He cut her off. "I get it. I know that you're sorry, I know you've been sorry for a long time. I don't want you to apologize anymore, I want to move forward."

"Tommy, you don't understand, he–"

"I do understand. I know there's still shit we need to work through. I'm not promising it will be perfect. I don't know that I've moved on 100%, but I do know that I want to, and that I want to work on that with you, not without you."

"I want that too, but it's more than that. Nora–"

"We can talk about it when I'm there, okay? I know you might not be able to drop everything and come with me. Maybe you don't have to leave at all, but I can come home early… We'll talk to Nora. I just… right now I just want to see you. I need to see you."

Jude thought of being able to see him again, to be able to hold him, to have him sleep next to her again, if only for a couple of nights. If she told him she was working with Benjamin, she would jeopardize that. He had to find out eventually, but could it wait?

"Jude?" Tommy asked. "You there?"

"Yeah, I'm here. But…"

"I know I hurt you when I left." He sighed. "And I know you feel like you have to pretend that I didn't."

"I'm not angry," Jude insisted. "I'm not. I was hurt and confused and… it's been hard, but I'm not mad. It's really not that."

"I'm really sorry that I hurt you, and I know how easily this could become like the time you left for England and we were both too stubborn to just say when and admit we wanted to be together. So I'm saying when, okay?"

Jude closed her eyes. She would tell him when he got here, she decided. Maybe it would be better in person anyway. He would be angry, but she thought she could probably make him understand that it wasn't her choice to keep working with Benjamin, that nothing was going on between them, and that this was the only way she could move on for good.

"Jude?" Tommy asked.

"Yes," Jude said. "Yes, okay. There's stuff we need to talk about, but we can talk about it in person."

"I'd like that."

She heard the smile in his voice, and she smiled too. "Me too."

.

The next few days seemed to drag on infinitely. It seemed like the closer Monday grew, the slower the time passed. Sunday night, Jude could barely sleep, her stomach in knots of anxiety and excitement. The next morning, she was scheduled to rehearse harmonies with Benjamin (although she did not specify to Tommy why she had to go in to work) and Tommy had an appointment for an MRI almost as soon as he was scheduled to get back into town. They decided Tom would just come to the apartment when he was done, and she would meet him there.

As she and Benjamin worked, Jude found herself completely unable to concentrate, looking at the clock every few minutes, her leg bouncing unconsciously with nervous energy.

"That eager to get away from me?" Benjamin asked wryly after about twenty minutes.

Jude looked at him, startled. "What?"

"You've looked like you can't wait to get out of here since the second you walked in the room. Is working with me really that bad?"

Jude rolled her eyes. "You need to get over yourself. Not everything's about you."

"What then? You got a hot date?"

"I think we can file that question under none of your business."

"Oh, right. Strictly professional." Benjamin gave his own eyeroll. "Well then, as a professional, your lack of focus is making this much harder than it needs to be."

Jude narrowed her eyes, preparing to retort, but she remembered why she was doing this, and that the sooner this song was finished, the sooner they could part ways for good. She pursed her lips for a moment and then sighed. "Sorry. I know I'm distracted today. Tommy is coming back into town this morning, if you must know. He's here for a couple days, and I'm meeting him after this."

"Ah. I see." Benjamin raised his eyebrows in a way she found distinctly irritating, but she held her tongue.

"So, sorry, yes, I realize that I haven't been focusing, but I will."

He looked skeptical, but eventually nodded and requested they sing through the bridge again, and that she offer her opinion on the chord progression. After another ten minutes, though, she was still bouncing her knee, and he sighed. "You know what? You should just go."

"What?" she asked in surprise.

"Go, Jude. We're not getting anything done. The harmonies aren't complicated, and we can rehearse again Wednesday before we record. That should be enough. You can leave."

Jude shook her head. "No, I'm scheduled to work and I'll work."

"Seriously? I won't tell Nora. You know you want to go, so go. I'm giving you an out, alright? Just take it. Go see your boyfriend. I probably owe you that much." He muttered something under his breath that sounded like "and maybe if you finally get laid you'll be less uptight."

"I'm sorry, what was that?" she snapped, glaring at him.

Benjamin rolled his eyes again. "I'm doing you a favour. Just take it."

Jude sighed. "Fine. Thank you." She grabbed her bag and stood up.

When she was in the doorway he said, "Jude, I know you didn't want to do this duet." She turned back to look at him, surprised at the sincerity in his voice. "But thank you. I know you're just doing it to get rid of me, but it's going to sound really great, and it's really going to help my career, and just… thanks."

"Yeah, of course," she said sincerely. "I know I've been… less than gracious about this, but it's a good song."

"I hope everything with Quincy works out," he said, and it actually looked like he meant it.

Jude didn't reply, just turned and left.


	38. Chapter 38

**A/N:** I have thoughts in response to both of the reviews left on the last chapter (one saying that Tommy and Jude fighting again would be exhausting (which, yes) and the other calling Jude stupid for not giving up her contract over one song to avoid a possible fight), but in a couple of chapters I already have dialogue where Jude pretty much directly addresses both sentiments, so I won't get into it here.

* * *

When Jude returned home, Tommy wasn't there yet. She did everything she could think of to occupy the time—checking her e-mail, all of her social media stuff, even cleaning the countertop—before resorting to pacing up and down the front hall. When he wasn't back in another half an hour, she was seized by the fear that something had happened to him. Despite the fact that it was only half past noon, and Tommy said he might not be there until one, once she thought it, she couldn't shake the worry that something was wrong. What if the doctor found something wrong, and had admitted Tommy to the hospital? What if there had been another accident? And another thought, horrifying in its own way: maybe he had decided not to come, that he didn't want to see her after all.

As she had almost convinced herself to call him to check in, she heard keys in the lock. She whipped around as he opened the door, walking in and setting his bags down.

She found herself frozen. She'd planned what she would say to him when she saw him again, but it all left her brain at the sight of him. "Tommy?" was all she managed to say, her voice going up at the end and making it sound like a question. He turned, startled, not having noticed her standing there. He met her gaze, eyes widening, and it felt like the wind had been knocked out of her.

A similar feeling having overcome him, Tommy breathed only a soft, "Hi." He, too, had thought through what he'd say to her, but found himself unable to access the words. After a too-long moment, he broke the silence. "You, uh… you look good."

The words brought her out of her trance and her face broke into a smile. "You too." Her eyes traveled over him, and her heart swelled at the sight of him looking stronger, healthier, _here._ "Better than I remember."

"Cast's off." Tommy laughed a little and pointed to his head. "And the hair's pretty much grown back."

Jude felt tears rush to her eyes. "I'm so glad you're home."

A grin spread across his face as Jude closed the distance between them and hurled herself into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck, squeezing him tightly, and he hugged her back and whispered, "Me too," into her hair. When she pulled back, he meant to articulate all of his apologies, how much he'd missed her, that he loved her, but their faces were still inches apart, and a second later his hands were in her hair, her lips on his.

.

"God I missed you," Tommy said later as they lay in bed, breathing heavily.

Jude laughed and kissed him. "Ditto." She snuggled up to him and laid her head down on his chest. "You have no idea." She sighed contentedly as he wrapped his arms around her.

"I think I have some idea." He kissed the top of her head. "I've been on tour for a month, if you remember."

She laughed again. "Ah, the tour bus. Good times." Tommy made a "hmph" noise and Jude pushed herself up on her elbow, grinning. "Did you get into a prank war? Fill anybody's bunks with jello? Moon passing vehicles out of the bus window?"

Tommy gave her an incredulous look. "Tell me you never mooned anyone out of a bus window." She giggled and turned away from him, covering her face with her hands. He gasped. "Seriously, Jude?" Jude just kept laughing, and Tommy sat up next to her. "Which tour was this?"

Jude took her hands away from her face. "The first one! G-Major!" she laughed. "Obviously! It was me and Kyle and Wally."

"Jesus Christ." Tommy rolled his eyes, but he couldn't help chuckling.

Jude sat up too, grinning. "Okay, first of all, I was 16, okay? And we'd been on that damn bus for _months._ One night, when we were bored out of our freaking minds, Spied dared us."

"Oh, right, of course Spiederman would. And _of course_ you'd do that on a dare." He shook his head.

"Hey! Jude Harrison is no chicken!"

"So who else has seen your ass that I don't know about?" he said, teasing. He meant it as a joke, but regretted it instantly when the smile fell from her face. "Shit, Jude, I didn't mean…"

She pulled the sheet up around her bare chest, feeling suddenly over-exposed. "Tommy, I'm not some kind of–"

"I know!" he insisted, putting a hand under her chin, tilting her face up to look at him. "I know, I know. I swear I didn't mean anything by it. I was joking, and I didn't think. What else is new, right?" He pulled her gently towards him and kissed her forehead. "I'm sorry."

She pulled back and put a hand on his cheek. "No, I'm sorry."

He sighed. "It's okay."

"It's not! I'm so so sorry, you don't understand."

"It wasn't okay, but now… I'm not saying I'm totally 100% past it, but I understand. We've been through a lot, and we can get through this too."

Tears filled her eyes. "It was a mistake, I never meant to–"

"Jude," Tommy said, his voice soft but insistent. "I understand." He said the word slowly, carefully articulating each syllable. She still looked very upset, so he sighed and said, "Come here." He pulled her into his arms

"Can you forgive me?" she whispered.

He hugged her tightly for a second and then gently pushed her back down onto the bed. "I love you." He kissed her forehead, then her lips.

She smiled. "I love you too."

"You're so beautiful," he murmured, brushing her hair away from her face. He stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers and said, "I'm sorry I left."

She shook her head. "I'm not." Tommy raised his eyebrows, surprised, and she clarified. "It hurt, but that doesn't mean it wasn't the right thing to do. Before… we just didn't have this anymore." She reached up and traced the line of his jaw with her fingers. "I didn't know if we'd ever get it back. I felt like I'd lost you."

Tommy looked sad for a moment, but then he shook his head and gave her a tender smile. "I'm right here."

Jude smiled too. "Thank you for coming back."

He leaned down to touch his forehead to hers. "Always."

.

They stayed in bed for most of the day, ordering pizza when Jude's stomach reminded her she had barely eaten for the last 24 hours.

"Jude Harrison, too nervous to eat? I don't believe it," Tommy teased her when she admitted she'd been freaking out and hadn't had lunch, and barely had dinner the night before. "I can't imagine _you_ being too _anything_ to eat."

"Shut up!" she protested, laughing and hitting him on the shoulder with the back of her hand. He gasped, pretending it hurt, and Jude rolled her eyes. When she pulled her hand back to smack him again, he grabbed it, kissing her knuckles.

Neither of them mentioned the nearly 30 pounds Jude had lost from not eating in the first month after Caroline died, though Jude could sense the memory behind the way Tommy looked at her before he kissed her, the way he ran his hands over her ribs, which had, at one point, become so clearly visible that he'd panicked when he'd walked in and seen her changing clothes. Jude had always been thin, even through the pregnancy she'd remained relatively slender, but the sight of her wasting away had scared him so deeply he'd watched her eat every meal for weeks, making sure she didn't stop until it was all gone.

He kissed her now, pulling her closer to him to make the memory go away, reassuring himself that she was there, that she was real and substantial and healthy. She threaded her fingers through his hair and wrapped her legs around his waist, but when he removed his mouth from hers to kiss her neck she said, "Wait, hang on. If we have sex again right now I will literally be thinking about pizza the entire time."

He pulled back to smirk at her. "Is that a challenge?" He trailed kisses down her body, but she moaned, "Mmm, tomato sauce," and he looked up at her incredulously, which made her burst out laughing. He, in turn, cracked up as well, and soon they were both laughing so hard they couldn't breathe.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Tommy gasped in between fits of laughter.

"You love it!" she shot back.

He shook his head, still smiling wide. "God help me, I do."

He leaned in to kiss her, but she whispered "oh, pepperoni" and it set him off again.

Tommy had never been a man who was quick to laugh, and it had always been a defining characteristic of his relationship with Jude that she was one of the only people who brought this side of him out so easily. It had been one of the ways had known, way back when Jude was 16, that there was something deeper between them than friendship or physical attraction. No one else could make him so angry or hurt him so badly, but no one else could make him smile until his face hurt, make him feel like he was flying. For all their intensity and drama, Tommy thought maybe it was the levity, however rare, that held them together. With everything that had happened to them, the fact that laughter was not permanently gone from their relationship was basically a miracle.

As their laughter died down, Jude's phone made a noise. "App says pizza's here!" she declared.

"Good, I'm starving. Go get it," Tommy said.

"You said you would go!" she protested.

He laughed. "I did not!"

"Fine." Jude got up and picked his shirt up off the floor, slipping it on. "I will, then." The shirt went down just past the top of her thighs.

"Pants, Jude?" Tommy raised his eyebrows at her.

She shrugged her shoulders with a little smirk. "I think I'm fine like this." The doorbell rang and Jude said, "Oh, looks like he's here!" and walked to the bedroom door, swaying her hips more than strictly necessary.

Tommy rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine. I'll get it. Give me that." He got up and pulled on his boxers and jeans.

Jude slipped the shirt off and handed it to him. "Thank you!" she said, getting back into the bed with a self-satisfied grin.

"Have you always been this manipulative?" he teased.

She shrugged, the grin still on her face. "I know how to get what I want."

He rolled his eyes again. "Yeah, whatever. I'll be back in a minute."

She chuckled to herself as he left the room, and looked down at her phone to find that she had a text from Benjamin. _"Stuck. Need you. Call me."_ She frowned.

 _"Not a good time. Tom is here."_ she sent back.

Her phone went off again as soon as she set it back down. _"Have you told him yet?"_

Jude's frown deepened and she replied, _"NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. See you on wednesday after T leaves."_

The phone went off again, but she ignored it as Tommy walked back into the room holding the pizza. "Your pizza, your majesty," he said sarcastically, handing her the box and sitting back down on the bed.

"Okay, now _that_ is sexy," Jude said as she opened the box and took a piece.

Tommy snorted and shook his head. "You're seriously warped, you know that?"

"And you love me anyway." She smiled at him.

He leaned in to give her a quick kiss. "I know I do."

* * *

 **A/N:** We've gotta have at least a little bit of happiness in this story, right? Also, for the record, Jude and Wally and Kyle mooning people out a bus window is 100% canon. It happens in the first episode of the second season, during the last bit of that tour montage under the beginning voiceover. Classic. God I love this ridiculous show.


	39. Chapter 39

As the sun was setting, Tommy remembered he'd promised to check in with a few people on the tour. "Sorry, girl," he apologized. "It'll only take 15 minutes or so."

"It's all good. I've had you all day, I can spare you for 15 minutes. I'm going to go take a shower." They exchanged a long, languid kiss before Jude stood up and said, "Hey, when you're done you should join me." She grinned and winked at him.

He groaned. "You're killing me, Harrison."

She laughed and called, "Hurry up then!" from the bathroom before shutting the door.

Tommy chuckled and shook his head. He got re-dressed (not that anyone could see him, but somehow it felt weird to be making work calls in the nude) and grabbed his phone. There were, of course, a plethora of minor crises he had to talk people through, but when he was confident the problems were handled, he hung up. He checked the time and found that it had taken longer than planned, more like half an hour. He could still hear the shower running, though, and Jude was singing, which made him smile. He'd missed hearing her sing. He approached the door quietly, wanting to keep listening for a little longer.

As he put his hand on the doorknob, he heard what he thought was his phone ringing. "What now?" he said with an exasperated sigh before realizing the call was on Jude's phone, not his. He heard the shower turn off, and he started to call out "Jude, your phone!" but he picked the phone up off the dresser, and his heart nearly stopped at the name on the caller ID. Benjamin Ray Kite.

Tommy froze for a minute, totally unsure of what to do. He racked his brain for a reasonable explanation. Was he stalking her or something? Had he been harassing her? The call went to voicemail. Tommy entered Jude's passcode (Caroline's birthday, same as the code to his own phone) with the intent to check how often Benjamin had been calling her, but it opened to Jude's text messages. The most recent was from Benjamin, and read, _"Come on Harrison, I need you. Call me."_ Anger surged in his veins at the nerve of that asshole, saying something so completely and totally inappropriate, but his heart plummeted when he opened the message and, instead of a one-sided conversation, Benjamin harassing Jude, he found that they had been corresponding. Rage filled him as he read the texts.

Jude came out of the bathroom in her bath robe, a towel wrapped around her hair. "Hey, what happened to joining me after you were done?" She came up behind him, putting her arms around his waist and pressing her lips to his shoulder. He tensed, and she noticed. "Tommy, what's wrong?" She pulled back and laughed, a little nervously, putting a hand on his arm and trying to get him to turn and face her.

"You got a call," he said in a low voice, turning around slowly. His face was deceptively calm, but it was an expression she'd seen before, a sort of calm before the storm. The tension underneath was palpable.

Jude's eyebrows shot up. She felt a little surge of fear, her pulse quickening. She maintained eye contact with him as she took the towel from her head slowly and used it to ring out the ends of her hair. When he didn't say anything else, she said, "Okay, and?"

"You got a call," Tommy repeated. He had a white-knuckled grip on her phone, and a muscle was beginning to twitch in his jaw. This was not good. Jude reflexively took a few steps back, draping the towel over the footboard of the bed. When she continued to stare at him, confused, he hissed, "Three guesses who it was from, Jude."

She racked her brain, shaking her head. "I don't…" Then it hit her. Her eyes widened. "Oh, Tommy, it isn't what it looks like."

"Benjamin," he said, his voice rising in volume.

"Oh my god, okay, I can explain, I swear. He and I–"

Tommy read from the phone screen, speaking over her. "' _Harrison, I need you. Call me._ '"

"That's not–"

"' _Not a good time. Tom is here_ '" he said more loudly, almost shouting.

"We aren't–"

"' _See you on Wednesday after T leaves_ '" Tommy's face was turning red, and he took a step towards her.

"Tommy, I swear I can explain that!"

"' _Have you told him yet?'"_ Tommy quoted, shaking now. "How about it, Jude?" he shouted. "Are you going to tell me about how you've been screwing Benjamin behind my back?!"

"Whoa!" Jude protested, putting her hands up. "Hold the fuck up! No one is screwing anyone!"

"' _Harrison, I need you_ '" he quoted, mockingly.

"It's not like that!" she cried. "Listen to me," she said, trying to speak in as calm and soothing a voice as possible. "What he said was 'stuck. need you.' As in, he is stuck putting the final touches on a song, and he needs me to help him. Tommy, I swear to you, all of this is for work."

"Nice try!" he shouted. "You expect me to believe that?"

"It's the truth!" she protested.

"Stop lying to me!" he screamed at her, throwing her phone across the room and into the bedroom wall.

She let out a yelp and ducked. "Tommy!" she gasped. "What the hell is wrong with you?" but he stormed out of the room, slamming the bedroom door into the wall outside in the process. She followed him. "Tommy! You need to calm down!"

He stopped as they reached the living room and he whirled around to face her. "You're telling me to calm down when you're fucking cheating on me?!"

"I'm not! He and I are working together, I told you!"

She saw him fight to take a deep breath, and, though his fists remained clenched and his face was red, his voice was calmer when he spoke again. "You said that you were done working together. You told me he was leaving Bermondsey."

Jude ran a hand through her wet hair. "I did. And he is leaving." She took a deep breath, but continued quickly when Tommy looked like he was about to start yelling again. "Nora let him out of his contract on one condition. He and I are doing a duet."

"A duet?!" Tommy cried incredulously.

"I had no choice! It was the only way she was willing to let him go!" He opened his mouth to shout at her again, then paused, his mind racing to figure out whether or not to believe her. She continued gently, "I meant to tell you."

"Then why didn't you?! If you're really just doing one duet with him, if you really had no other choice, then why did you fucking keep this from me?!"

"I didn't! You and I have barely talked, Tommy. We had one phone call in the past two weeks! I found out about this the week after I got back from Toronto, and I spent that week trying to negotiate another way. Then I kept putting off telling you about it because I knew you'd be upset. I tried to tell you when we talked on Thursday, I really did. You kept interrupting me when I tried, and then you were saying all this stuff about how you didn't want to be apart anymore… I knew that if I told you about the duet you might not come back here, and I just…" Tears filled her eyes. "I just wanted to see you. I missed you so much. I decided I'd tell you in person when you got here, but I just hadn't found the right time yet. Please believe me."

"I came back because I thought maybe I could trust you again," Tommy said in a low voice. "Apparently I was wrong."

"I never lied to you!" Jude protested.

"I don't believe you!"

She looked incredulous. "About which part?"

"Any of it!"

She made a noise of protest. "Aside from the fact that you shouldn't have been reading my texts in the first place, if you had read further back before throwing my fucking phone against a wall, all you would have seen was us talking about the song! The second he tries to talk about anything that's not totally work-related, I shut him down. Every time."

"I don't believe you!" he cried again.

"Why the hell would I lie?!"

"Because you're sleeping with him!"

"Why would I do that?!" Her eyes were wide and pleading. "All I want is you, Tommy. That's all I've ever wanted. Today was the first time I've been happy in so long. I love you. Why would I jeopardize that?"

The inner conflict played across Tommy's face. She could see that he wanted to believe her, but she could also tell that something in him was still genuinely convinced she was sleeping with Benjamin. "I can't…" He shut his eyes against the splitting headache that had been rapidly worsening, putting a hand up to the side of his head.

"I am not cheating on you. Tommy," she said his name again, softly, taking a step closer to him. "I love you." He looked up at her, and she put a hand on his cheek, gently. "I _love you._ I would never do that."

At that he frowned again, grabbing her wrist and removing her hand from his face. "But you _did,_ " he said. "How can you stand here and claim you would never cheat on me when you _have_ cheated on me?!" He was getting angrier again, his voice rising in volume. "You can't expect me to believe that!"

"It was one time, I made a mistake! You of all people should understand that!" she cried indignantly. "It's not the same!"

"You had sex with another man!" he shouted.

"I made a mistake! One mistake! And I paid for it!" She was shouting too, now. "You almost died! You left me! I have paid for my sins, Tommy!"

That made him furious. "You think _you_ paid for it?!" he bellowed. "You think that because _I_ got hit by a car, because _I_ almost died, because _I_ have had to go through months of pain and therapy, _you_ are the one who was paying for it? **_I_** am the one who paid for the fact that you couldn't keep your fucking legs closed, not you!" He was still holding her left wrist in his hand, and he was squeezing it so hard she cried out in protest. He let go, his eyes widening, and she moved away from him until her back was against the wall, hand around her wrist. "Jude, I... I didn't mean to hurt you, I'm–"

"Bullshit," she cut him off. "You may not have meant to do this," she held up her wrist, showing the circle of pink where he'd grabbed it, "but all of that was meant to hurt me."

Tommy looked at her, desperation in his expression. "I can't... I can't do this, Jude. I don't know what to…" He put his hands up to his head again, squeezing his eyes shut, and she felt a pang of sympathy and concern before remembering her thrown phone, the pain in her wrist, how colossal this whole overreaction was.

"I think you need to go," she said quietly, but in a tone that made it clear this was not optional.

His eyes snapped open, and he looked betrayed and angry. "You're kicking me out? Of _my_ apartment?"

"Our apartment." She sighed. "But it's not really ours, is it? You left."

"I came back!"

 _Did you, though?_ Jude thought. She found that she was exhausted, suddenly completely worn out. She sighed again. "Tommy, please. I can't keep fighting right now. And I see the way you're holding your head, you can't either. If we go on like this, one of us is going to get really hurt."

"Jude!" Tommy protested.

"Please," she said wearily. "Just… Either you have to let me off the hook for this duet thing, agree to believe I'm telling you the truth—which I _am_ —or you need to go, and we can continue this when you're able to think clearly. And I can tell you're not ready to let me off the hook, so…"

"Fine," he conceded, his expression hardening. "I'm going."

She felt a pang of guilt. "You don't have to _leave_ leave, I mean, you can stay here if you want to, I just… One of us can sleep on the couch or–"

"No," he cut her off. "You're right, I'm out. I'm done."

The finality of that statement sent an icicle of fear through her heart, but anything she did to protest would just make the situation worse, so she just said "Okay," and went to retrieve his jacket, making sure his phone was in the pocket before handing it to him. When he was almost out the door with the bags he had not yet moved from the foyer, she said, "Please be safe, Tommy." Her voice broke on the word "safe."

He didn't reply, just closed the door behind him, leaving her, utterly drained and confused, to cry herself to sleep.


	40. Chapter 40

**A/N:** AR: (re: sexist comments) Yes, I absolutely agree. Re-reading the "keep your legs closed" line makes me cringe every time, and it did when I wrote it. It is for sure intentional, though. I wanted to provoke an emotional response with the scene, and that's also Tommy's intention in saying it. (Jude picks up on that, as you can tell from her next comment "all of that was meant to hurt me." She's right, it was, both on Tommy's part and mine.) (Also, don't start mourning the end of the story quite yet. There are 15 more chapters including this one! That's longer than some chaptered stories)

atthtt (and also the guest reviewer): I'm not sure I agree with the implication that Jude doesn't know her decisions led Tommy to react the way he did. I think maybe the next chapter after this one will shed some additional light on the reasons Jude didn't tell him about the duet up front, if that wasn't already clear, but either way I would say that a) she clearly knows now that she made the wrong choice, and b) she had valid reasons to make that decision, even if in the end it was a mistake. As for the cheating, Jude has expressed nothing but remorse and regret for the last 29 chapters, so I'd venture to say she knows that part is her fault.

I also wouldn't be so quick to think of Tommy's reaction in the last chapter as being the reasonable result of Jude's actions, but I guess whether or not it was an overreaction is a matter of opinion. The fact that he doesn't trust her is definitely reasonable, (although of course by the adage "once a cheater, always a cheater," Jude shouldn't ever have trusted Tommy either...) but there are also probably better ways to handle that. I try not to write too many situations in which one character is 100% in the right and the other 100% in the wrong. Moral gray and shared blame are more interesting, and more realistic.

 **Anyway** , thank you all so much for reading and reviewing! This is a relatively short chapter that leads directly into the next one, so that means an extra update. Chapter 41 will be posted tomorrow (Saturday)

* * *

The first time Jude called Tommy's cell phone the next morning—her phone had a badly cracked screen, but seemed otherwise functional—it rang four times before going to voicemail. She figured he was probably still sleeping, but when he didn't call her back for another hour, she called again. Two rings this time, then voicemail. _That has to mean he hit ignore, right?_ she thought. She was angry, but also a little relieved, since that meant he was at least alive and okay to ignore her calls. When her calls continued to go to voicemail—more and more quickly, though still not immediately as they would if he'd turned his phone off—she texted him.

 _"Fine ignore me. But you need to let me know your okay"_

The reply took a few minutes, but it came. _"not dead if that's what your asking"_

 _"Where are you?"_ Jude texted back, but received no reply. Fifteen minutes and two ignored phone calls later, she texted _"answer my calls Quincy!"_ She then typed out "stop being such a child." Her finger hovered over the send button, but she thought better of it, deleting that text and sending _"please."_

Jude, after another fifteen minutes, decided she wouldn't stop texting him until he finally talked to her:

 _"Quincy I'm serious  
"Tommy I'm not cheating on you  
"why can't you believe that?  
"I love you  
"we need to talk about this  
"my phone screen is totally shattered and the bedroom wall has a dent in it so thanks for that  
"there's an actual hole in the wall in the hallway where you slammed the doorknob into it  
"A HOLE IN THE WALL real nice job there Tommy  
"what the fuck is wrong with you  
"why won't you answer my calls  
"please answer me  
"where are you  
"at least tell me where you are  
"we need to talk  
"please Tom  
"SERIOUSLY  
"ANSWER ME  
"you need to get over yourself  
"this is childish even for you  
"I didn't mean that  
"I'm sorry  
"please baby we need to talk about this  
"talk to me  
"please"_

When she called again, it went straight to voicemail. So he'd turned off his phone. She growled in frustration, shouting "Goddammit, Quincy!" out loud, though no one was there to hear it.

Well, fine. If he wasn't willing to reply to her, she would just have to go find him.

.

When Tommy exited the doctor's office, he saw that Jude was sitting in the waiting room. She noticed him as he walked through the room and stood up, crossing her arms and glaring at him. He groaned internally, but supposed he should have figured that she'd be here, that he couldn't avoid her forever. She knew the time and place of his appointment, so he couldn't really be surprised that she'd shown up when he'd ignored her billions of calls and texts this morning.

 _Damn,_ he thought as she continued to give him that icy glare, _if looks could kill, Quincy, you'd be done for._ He briefly considered just walking past as if he hadn't seen her, but obviously that would never work. He took a deep breath as he walked up to her.

"Hey, babe," Jude said in an overly-sweet voice he knew meant she wanted to kill him with her bare hands. "How was the doctor's appointment?"

"What the hell are you doing here?" he hissed.

"Are you really asking me that?" she hissed back. "You ignored me all morning. I had no other choice."

He scowled. "Did you ever consider, oh, I don't know, maybe that's because I don't _actually_ want to talk to you?"

"Oh? Well, thankfully, this isn't _junior high_ , so you throwing a tantrum and deciding to avoid me is not going to work here," Jude shot back, still speaking quietly, mindful of the other people in the waiting room.

Tommy narrowed his eyes. "Don't fucking start, Jude. Okay?" He tried to walk past her and to the door.

"Don't you dare," she said, more loudly, grabbing his shoulder. A few people looked up. He stopped and turned back to her. She lowered her voice again. "You need to come with me, and we need to talk about this."

"What part of 'I don't want to talk to you' is so complicated?" He pulled his arm out of her grasp and turned away again, walking towards the door.

"No! We are having this conversation, even if it needs to be right here," Jude said, in a voice a little louder than her normal speaking voice. Most of the eyes in the waiting room were on them now.

Tommy turned back around and hissed, "Jude, tabloids! For fuck's sake, keep your voice down!"

"Oh, I am so far past caring about tabloids, Tommy." Jude lowered her voice, but not enough not to be overheard, now that she already had the attention of the people around them. "You can come with me and we can talk somewhere privately, or we can talk about it here. So help me, I will follow you through this building shouting if I need to."

He was so tempted, in that moment, to announce her infidelity to the room, to the world, but he knew he'd regret that the second he did it, so he let out a huff and said, dryly, "Fine, Jude, you win."

When they were in the lobby of the building Jude asked, "For real this time, how was the appointment?"

He scowled at her. "I thought you wanted to continue our conversation from last night."

"And I thought _you_ wanted to do that in private," she snapped, then sighed. "Tommy, I'm just concerned, okay? I just want to know how you're doing."

He was silent for a moment, but then mumbled, "Everything's fine. They don't have the results of the MRI yet, but otherwise everything is good. The left hand is good, vision, memory, whatever. It's all fine."

He gave her a "happy now?" look, and she said, "Good. That's really really good."

"So where do you want to do this then?" he asked, irritated, as they exited onto the street. "Your car? I assume you have a plan since you're the one calling the shots on this 'conversation'."

She sighed. "Will you come home with me and we can talk about it there? Please?"

Tommy hesitated, then sighed and shook his head. "I'm in a hotel across the street. Just… come on."

Her phone chimed as they walked, and she pulled it out. The Ramones case he'd given her was gone, and by the look of the cracks in the screen, and the damage to the top of the phone, he realized the case had probably broken when he'd thrown the phone. He felt a pang of guilt and shame. What was _wrong_ with him? Throwing things across the room, busting holes in walls… it's the kind of shit he was doing when he was an angry and entitled teenage superstar, and even then it wasn't acceptable. But then Jude smiled a little at her phone, at the text she'd received, and the anger surged up in him again. "Text from your boyfriend?" he snapped.

Jude stopped walking, looking at him incredulously. "Text from my _sister_ , Tommy." She shoved the phone in his face. "See? Sadie Harrison. But I can see how you might not be able to read the name since some jackass threw my phone against a wall!" He looked around reflexively for paparazzi, and didn't see any obvious, which, as he'd learned the hard way over the years, didn't mean they weren't there. Jude continued to yell at him. "Besides, my _boyfriend,"_ she gestured pointedly at him, "is actually ignoring all of my text messages today."

"Okay, fine! Sorry! Keep your goddamn voice down."

"Fine." She put her phone back in her pocket and smiled too sweetly at him, taking a step closer and moving to slip her arms around his waist.

He pulled away. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"You're concerned about the paparazzi, so I'm showing them we aren't fighting." She raised her eyebrows at him, daring him, and he stared at her for a moment before sighing and wrapping his arms around her.

What he hadn't expected, and what he didn't let on, was how good it felt to hold her, despite his anger. He let the pain into his expression for a moment, shutting his eyes and breathing in the familiar smell of her shampoo. In that moment a big part of him wanted to just trust her, to forgive her, to let this go. He wanted it not to matter what she'd done, or what he'd done, or how much they'd lost… But in the end it wasn't that easy, so he frowned at her again as he pulled back.


	41. Chapter 41

Jude ran her hand along the table in Tommy's hotel room. "We stayed in a lot of these hotels on tour," she said quietly. "Do you remember?"

Tommy sighed and leaned against the counter. "Of course."

"Sneaking into each other's rooms, pretending everyone else didn't know…" She laughed, lightly. "There was that morning in, what was it, Barcelona? The alarm didn't go off and so we were sleeping when Nicola…"

He smiled, in spite of himself. "She knocked on your door and I hid while she talked to you about details of the sound check, and I thought I'd gotten away with it, but then before she left she said–"

"'Tom, I hope you were listening to that, because I don't want to repeat it later,'" Jude finished in an imitation of Nicola's accent. They both laughed a little. Jude sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "That was a long time ago."

Tommy nodded, solemn again. "About a year and a half."

"Feels like a lifetime," she said softly. Tommy didn't reply, and they stood there in silence for a long time, both looking down at the floor.

"What did you want from this conversation, Jude?" Tommy said finally, looking back up at her. "Why are you even here?"

She looked up too, frowning. "You're leaving tomorrow, right? Going back on tour?"

"Today, actually," he admitted, looking down again. "In a few hours. I changed my travel plans."

Jude felt a little jolt of pain at that. "Does that mean you were planning to leave without talking to me any more about this?"

"What is there to talk about?"

"Are you serious? Tommy, at the very least I need to know where we stand."

"What does that even mean?!"

"You know what it means!" she cried. "Are you forgiving me? Are you still convinced I'm cheating on you? Do you just need more time? Are you leaving me? Where. do. we. stand?" She emphasized each of the last four words.

"I came back because I thought I could trust you again! Obviously I was wrong!"

"I didn't do anything!" she protested.

"Don't get me started on what you did, Jude!" He was back to almost shouting.

"Okay, okay, fine." She put her hands up, speaking softly. "I didn't do anything _this_ time. Since you left."

"You lied to me."

She sighed and shut her eyes briefly. "I didn't lie. I never lied to you. Not once, through all of this. I didn't tell you about the duet right away, and I'm sorry about that. If I had known you would–"

"If you'd known I would find out you'd have told me?!"

"What?! Of course I knew you'd find out, Tommy! Obviously! We're going to release the song! How would I hide that? What I was saying was, if I'd known you'd find out by reading my goddamn text messages and getting completely the wrong idea, I'd have told you right when you got back! But I wanted to wait. I just wanted one day, Tommy! I wanted one fucking day where we didn't have to fight!"

"If you didn't want a fight, don't lie to me!"

"Oh, right," she said sarcastically. "Because if I'd said 'by the way, I'm doing a duet with Benjamin' you'd have said 'thanks for your honesty, Jude!'" She shook her head. "Please. You'd have freaked out and thrown a fit exactly the way you're doing now." He started to protest, but she spoke over him. "I didn't want to hurt you, and I didn't want to make you angry, but you want to know the truth, Tom? I put off telling you because I was _scared_. I'm so fucking scared of how you're going to react to things, all the time! You have no idea how tiring you are!"

He stood frozen, his mouth open in shock. _"Tiring?"_

She sighed. "Yes, Tommy. Tiring. I am tired of fighting with you, or worrying about fighting with you, or trying to apologize to you. I'm exhausted."

"You don't think I'm tired? You think I want to fight with you? I hate this just as much as you do, Jude!" he cried. "If you didn't want me to be angry, if you didn't want to hurt me, you shouldn't have agreed to the duet in the first place!"

"It's one song! And I had no choice!" she protested, eyes wide.

He scoffed. "You had a choice."

"Really? Because here were my other options: One, I refuse, and Benjamin and I continue working at the same label for the rest of his two year contract. You're telling me you want that? Because I sure as hell didn't. Two, I refuse, and I leave Bermondsey. I promise you Nora was not budging. I tried to get her to reconsider, I honestly did. I begged her, tried everything I could think of to convince her, and she was _furious_ by the end of it. I had already leveraged my contract once to get her to drop him. I _had_ to give in about the duet, it was the only way she would let him go. My only other option would've been to quit. I love you, Tommy, but it's _one song_. I'm not going to throw away my career just to avoid upsetting you."

"That's not what I want!" he protested.

"But that was the only other choice!" She gave him a pleading look. "Everything I did, I did for us."

"You cheated on me!" Tommy shouted. "Tell me how you did that for us!" Jude put her head down in her hands and groaned softly, but didn't say anything. "You cheated on me," he said again, more quietly, his voice breaking.

Jude looked up at him. "Yes," she said quietly. "I did. But I've explained, and I've apologized so many times, and I've given you space, and I don't know what else to do." Tears filled her eyes again. "Tell me what you want from me, Tommy. Please, tell me what else I can do to make it better, because aside from going back in time and changing it, I've got nothing."

He put his hands up to his head, which was starting to hurt again, squeezing his eyes shut. After a long moment, he dropped his hands with a sigh and quietly said, "You betrayed me."

Jude looked at him for a long time, sorrow in her expression. "I can't say sorry anymore," she said finally. "You know I'm sorry, you know why it happened, you know I'd give anything to change it. But I can't just keep apologizing if it's never going to make a difference. If there's something else you want me to do, Tommy, I'll do it in a heartbeat, but…"

He sighed again and hung his head, mumbling, "I'm just not over it, Jude."

"I know, and I get it. I'm not sure I'd be over it either." She bit her lip for a moment. "Look, yesterday you said you didn't want me to apologize anymore. You told me you understood. On the phone you said you wanted to work through this together and not apart. Is any of that still true?"

He looked at her desperately. "I don't know."

"If you finish the tour and come back after, is this going to happen all over again?"

"Goddammit, Jude, I don't know! If you would just…"

"Just what?!" she cried in frustration when he trailed off. "Every single day since it happened I have _torn myself apart_ in the hope that you'll forgive me, but I have nothing left." Her voice cracked on the last word. She stared at him, silent for a moment, then said, "I think we're… I don't know, at some kind of crossroads or something."

His eyes narrowed. "If this is an ultimatum, I swear to God…"

"You know what? Yes. It is an ultimatum, because I feel like I've done everything I possibly can, so unless there's something more you want from me, the ball is in your court. You either forgive me or you don't. We either get past this, or we don't. But I cannot have you throwing my things, screaming at me, running away… You either decide to fight for our relationship, or you don't, but I have no more fight left."

"I don't want to lose you," he said quietly. He thought he could feel his heart break, physically crack open and bleed.

"If you can't let this go, then we have no choice," Jude said, tears forming in her eyes. They stared at each other for a long moment. His eyes were wide, hers bright with unshed tears. She spoke again, softly. "Tommy, we knew after Caroline died there was a chance we wouldn't make it."

"No!" Tommy insisted. "Jude, no."

"Listen to me. You are the love of my life," she said quietly. "I will always love you. There will never be anyone else. But I can't destroy myself trying to keep you. Going on like this will destroy me." Her voice broke, and she swallowed hard. "If I ruined us and I can't have you, if I end up alone, then… so be it."

"Oh no, heaven forbid you end up alone after what you did," he said sarcastically.

She pursed her lips, but ignored the comment. "Either tell me you forgive me, and be able to mean it, or this is it. I honestly don't see another way."

His anger softened again, back into quiet desperation. "Maybe I just… need more time."

"Maybe?"

"If I come back at the end of this tour will you turn me away?"

She wanted to say, _no, of course not, I could never turn you away._ Instead she said, "If you come back at the end of this tour will you put another hole in my wall?"

He looked offended. "I didn't mean… I only got so angry because of–"

Jude cut him off, shaking her head. "If it hadn't been the duet, it would have been something else eventually. You said it yourself. You don't trust me."

"How can you blame me for that? Jude, I'm _trying."_

"It's not that I'm blaming you, Tommy. I'm not. I understand, and you have every right to feel that way, I just don't think we can get past this if you can't trust me anymore."

Tommy moved, taking a few steps closer to her. "Haven't we been through worse than this?" he asked in a hoarse whisper, his eyes wide and scared.

Jude shook her head. "It hasn't just been one thing. It's been one thing after another."

"But, I do… I love you." There were tears in his eyes now too.

"I love you too." Her voice broke again and she wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her face in his chest. He held her so tightly she almost couldn't breathe, but she just hugged him back as tightly as she could. Jude wasn't sure how long they stood there. When she pulled back, his shirt was damp with her tears, but her eyes had dried. She put a hand on the side of his face and kissed him gently, then pulled back and looked at him with weary eyes, stroking his cheek with her thumb. "Maybe love isn't enough this time, Tommy."

He drew in a sharp breath as she stepped back, moving away from him again. "So, what, then?" he asked, though he was afraid of the answer. "You're saying we're done? This is it?"

"For now I think it is." She barely whispered the words. Then, a little louder, "If you come back at the end of the tour and you're done wanting to punish me for what I did, if you think you can start to trust me again and you think things will be different…"

He looked frustrated. "I'm not _punishing_ –"

"That's not the point," she cut him off, gently. "The point is, we can re-examine where we are when you get back."

"Then how is this different from before? Do we talk? Do we skype? Do we see other people?"

Jude flinched a little at the last one. "Maybe we… we only text or call if one of us really needs to talk about something? And I mean, if you… want to see other–"

"I don't," he cut her off, firmly. "And the media?"

"Keep it quiet in the press, at least for now, yeah?"

"Sounds…" He trailed off, unable to say the word 'good'. He sighed. "Yeah."

"So then we're…"

"Separated?"

"Separated." Jude nodded slowly, testing the word.

They stood there for a long time in silence, both wishing the other would say something, refuse to accept this, come up with some way they could make it work to stay together. Jude wanted to ask _how did this happen to us?_ but she was pretty sure she knew what his answer would be. Eventually Tommy broke the silence. "So…"

Jude nodded. "Yeah. I guess this is… goodbye, then."

Pain flashed across his face before he cleared his throat and composed his expression. "Okay. Goodbye."

"Please be safe, Tommy."

"Yeah, sure," he sighed. "You too, I guess." She started to turn, but he softly said, "Jude, wait." She looked back at him. He reached out to lightly stroke her cheek with his fingers. "I miss you already." His voice was barely above a whisper. She just shut her eyes briefly and nodded.

Somehow she found the willpower to leave.


	42. Chapter 42

**A/N:** To the guest reviewer with the complaint that the story is getting repetitive: I'm not offended, I completely see your point, but I think what you're missing is that it's repetitive _intentionally_. A lot happens in this story, and a lot of it is a back and forth sort of roller coaster. "Every time we think they're fixing things you bring them crashing back down." Yes, you're right, that's _exactly_ what I'm doing. Progress is made and then undone, because I think that's how grief and relationships and growth work in real life to a great extent. It might be frustrating to read, because it's frustrating to live, but I like it in terms of character development.

It's really not multiple breakup scenes so much as it's a continuing process of them trying and failing to fix their problems. It's not that they've fixed things and then something else comes along to knock them back down (not at this point, you can make that argument to some extent about the beginning of this story, but I had to throw a ton of horrible things at them to make the story what it is), it's the same things coming back up again and again. Jude says "I'm exhausted" and "I have nothing left" "going on like this will destroy me." It's _supposed_ to be frustrating. The characters are frustrated. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. _I put these characters through hell._

So I'm sorry you're frustrated, but also I'm sort of glad, because it means I'm conveying what I tried to convey. If you were _bored_ , that would be sad, but frustrated? That I'm okay with. I am sorry if this isn't what you want in a fanfic. That's a legitimate point of view, people look for different things in the fanfiction they read. Some people prefer the happier fluffier shallower things, and that's totally valid. But, well, you can't say I didn't warn you that that's not what this story was going to be.

Regardless, thank you all very much for reading and reviewing! There were a lot of interesting comments on the last chapter. I really like hearing your thoughts and perspectives, although I'm going to try to stay away from the argument over who's the victim here this time. I think you probably know where I stand on the whole "Tommy is blameless, Jude deserves to suffer" angle by now lol (Although I will say these things: 1) technically Jude didn't actually lie, but whatever, and 2) Jude _is_ suffering, she _has_ _been_ suffering. So is Tommy. I also think the story has made it clear enough why Jude would think it's legitimate to bring up Caroline's death in that context. It _has_ been about that, even if more of it is about her cheating... which was also about Caroline's death to a huge extent.)

* * *

The next morning, for the first time in months, Jude woke before sunrise with lyrics burning in her mind. She reached instinctively for a notebook on the bedside table, before remembering she hadn't kept one there for a long time now. She half-considered going back to sleep, letting the line go and hoping it was still there in the morning, but in the end she got up and went to her music room for her most recent journal, which had been gathering dust since before Caroline died.

 _Heaven forbid you end up alone and don't know why  
Hold on tight, wait for tomorrow, you'll be alright_

After writing the line, Jude tried to go back to sleep, but found that she couldn't. The old creative fervor took her over, and she wrote until the sun had long since come up and her once-callused fingers were close to bleeding. Not wanting to lose her momentum, the first she'd had in months, she took her completed song and her fourth cup of coffee to work, where one of the studios was empty.

 _It's on your face, is it on your mind?  
Would you care to build a house of your own?  
How much longer, how long can you wait?  
It's like you wanted to go and give yourself away_

The recording was all on one track and sandpaper rough, quick and dirty, but she just felt like she needed to get this song out, needed to process this in some way besides internalizing the pain.

 _It feels good_

 _Is that reason enough for you?_

Singing the lyrics made her chest ache, made her feel like she couldn't breathe.

 _I don't know how to get you out of this one_

She did not cry.

.

"What's that?" Benjamin's voice from behind her made Jude jump as the playback of the song finished.

"Jesus, Benjamin!" she cried, turning. "Don't sneak up on people like that!"

"Sorry," he said quickly. "I swear I wasn't eavesdropping, but we're set to record at noon and you said you'd help me put the final touches on the song. You weren't answering your phone. Emily said you were in here."

Jude felt a surge of anger at Benjamin. If it hadn't been for those stupid calls and texts, then maybe… But she knew that was unfair. The issue between her and Tommy ran deeper than that. She took a deep breath, letting it out in a long sigh. "Yeah, sorry. My phone screen got cracked really badly and I took it in to get fixed yesterday. I won't have it back until tomorrow. I should have let you know that earlier."

He took a few steps towards her. "What're you working on? It sounded like you singing."

"It's nothing," she snapped.

He raised an eyebrow. "Is everything okay?"

"Fine," she said, turning irritatedly back to the computer.

"Ah," was all he said.

She whipped back around. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Things with Quincy didn't go as planned, I take it?" She glared and he put his hands up. "None of my business."

"Everything is fine," she lied. He was still looking at her skeptically, so she pursed her lips and then sighed. "You called, he saw it, and we fought."

"Don't tell me you're blaming me for that! I couldn't have known," he protested.

"Did I say I was blaming you?" Jude snapped. "We fought about the duet. He wasn't happy, but he realizes that I had no choice. We're fine. He's back on tour." She crossed her arms. "There," she huffed. "Curiosity satisfied?"

"You're writing again?" he asked quietly. "That's what that is, right? You wrote something and you recorded it. Can I hear?"

"No." She shook her head. "It's nothing. It's one song. Not even a good one."

"I'm sure it's great. How long has it been since you wrote something?"

She frowned at him, but eventually answered. "I don't know. Six months, probably. Maybe more."

"Then I'm glad you're back to it. The world is a better place with your music in it."

"Benjamin, don't," she snapped.

He sighed and muttered. "Compliments are over the line. Noted."

"Can we just get this duet over with?" Jude asked, exasperated.

"Are you up for it?" He looked genuinely concerned.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked defensively.

"Just that… The song is intense, and you don't seem…" He trailed off as she glared at him. "Okay, fine. Then I need you to look at these lyrics. We start recording in half an hour."

.

Unfortunately, Benjamin was right when he said the song was intense. When Jude and Tommy were merely taking a very temporary break with a set end date, it hadn't seemed so horribly applicable to her life, but now it was all she could do not to start crying there in the studio.

 _Use it, Harrison,_ said a voice in her head, sounding suspiciously like Tommy. _Let it out just enough so the audience feels it, and shut the rest away. Don't let it take you over._

"You okay, Jude?" the voice of Morgan, the producer for the project, came through her headphones as they were about to lay down the preliminary track. "Ready?"

She took a sip of her water and cleared her throat. "I'm fine. We're good to go."

"Benjamin?" Morgan asked.

"Absolutely. One bar count, then in, yeah?" Benjamin smiled at Jude from where he was seated at the keyboard. She took a deep breath as he started to play.

He looked at her as he sang, _Say something, I'm giving up on you._ and she had to look away from those earnest eyes. Somehow she made it through the song without crying, though her voice came out a little choked in some places.

The following takes got easier, and because the song was relatively simple as far as instrumentation, recording it only took a couple of sessions. When they'd finished laying down the last of the harmonies and Morgan told her she could go, she left gladly, first stopping by the other studio to put the finished recording of "Heaven Forbid" onto a flash drive.

Benjamin came in just as she was about to leave. "You heading out?" he asked.

She nodded. "My part's done. Morgan's got it from here."

"Are you okay?" He asked gently.

She frowned. "I really wish everyone would stop asking me that."

He still looked concerned. "You said you and Quincy were fine. That's not really the truth, is it?"

She drew in a sharp breath. "That's none of your business."

"I know," he sighed. "But the way you sang the song, I could tell… I just want to know if you're okay."

She hadn't intended to tell him, but for some reason she didn't get angry this time. Maybe she just needed to get it out before it ate her up. So she didn't yell at him to stay out of it, just looked down at the floor and answered him. "We're… separated?" she mumbled. "I don't really know what it means. We didn't break up, exactly, but he's on tour, and we're not really talking, and yeah, I think we might be over." She looked back up at him. "Curiosity satisfied?"

He looked very sad. "Jude, I'm so sorry."

She frowned. "I don't want your pity. I have had enough of everyone's _fucking_ pity. I can't take it anymore."

"I don't mean it pityingly," he insisted, "I mean it as an apology. This is my fault. I shouldn't have… You're going through an incredibly hard time and I took advantage, and that was so wrong of me, and I–"

"Benjamin," she cut him off. "It was a decision I made. It was the wrong decision, and I definitely didn't think it through, but I knew what I was doing. You kissed me, and I could have pulled away, I could have stopped you, I could have said no, but I didn't. I made the choice not to. That was not you taking advantage of me."

"I could have–"

"Either of us could have stopped it," she interrupted again. "And I didn't until it was too late. But you weren't the one in the relationship. You aren't the one who cheated."

"I thought you were unhappy. I thought he _made_ you unhappy. I think I convinced myself your relationship was good as over."

"Self-fulfilling prophecy," Jude muttered, then spoke more loudly. "Hey, you _cannot_ tell anyone about us being separated, okay? He and I agreed to keep it quiet in the media, and it's really important that you respect that. Honestly, I shouldn't even have said anything to you."

"Of course, Jude. Of course. But I wish I could make this right. I wish I could help. I could talk to him, I could–"

"Don't you dare," she snapped. "For God's sake, talking to Tom is the very last thing you should do."

"But it's all my fault. I just want to help."

"Obviously it is not all your fault," she said, rolling her eyes. "I just told you. I made a choice when I cheated on him. At least part of me, in that moment, wanted to be with someone that wasn't Tommy. There's a reason that happened, and it's not that you were just that irresistible, because you weren't. You did not have the power to single-handedly destroy my relationship. We have bigger problems." She looked down at her hands, and her voice got quiet. "You could not possibly understand what it's like to lose a child. It tears you apart, it _destroys_ you. Relationships are hard enough when you aren't…" she shook her head, suddenly remembering who she was talking to, that she shouldn't have been getting this personal with him to begin with. "Honestly, Benjamin, it's none of your business. It's not about you, it has nothing to do with you. If what you want is forgiveness, then okay, you have it. It's fine, I don't care anymore. But you don't have to worry about me. Seriously, please don't."

He nodded. "Okay. Well, thank you, then. For everything." He winced and corrected himself. "Music-wise, I mean. The single, the duet, the stuff you taught me. You're an amazing musician, and a great producer. I have nothing but respect for you."

"Well, thanks." Jude smiled a little, and held out a hand. He shook it. "Best of luck. Seriously."

"To you too," he said sincerely, briefly clasping her hand in both of his before letting go. "And if he doesn't forgive you it's his loss, okay?"

Jude pursed her lips, but didn't object, just shook her head and said, "Goodbye, Benjamin," and left the studio.

* * *

 **A/N:** "Heaven Forbid" is by The Fray, "Say Something" is by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera


	43. Chapter 43

**A/N:** To the people who wanted to some Tommy POV: Ask and you shall receive! (Okay, that's really not how it works, since I wrote most of this chapter over a year ago, but still, here you go. The Tommy!) (But if you're sick of Jude, I have bad news, because this story is about her and she is still a main character. Sorry you had to find out this way. Hopefully you will make it through :P)

* * *

Tour was not an easy place to be a recovering alcoholic. Tommy had done well so far, successfully maintaining sobriety for the first half of the tour, despite the drinking and partying culture that permeated this side of the business. But after leaving Jude in London, that willpower was waning fast.

Upon returning to the tour, the first person he ran into was Derek, by far his least favorite member of Fitting Ideal, who was chatting up the girl behind the counter at the hotel. Tommy gritted his teeth as he walked up to get his room key. He thanked the woman and nodded curtly at Derek, hoping to be able to get out of this interaction without having to talk to him.

No such luck. As he walked away, Derek called, "Hey, Quincy!" and came up behind him. "Why the long face?" Derek had a perpetually smug expression, and Tommy found it more than irritating.

Tommy reflexively clenched his jaw, but forced himself to relax. He shrugged. "Just tired."

"You're back early. Thought you weren't coming back until tomorrow."

Tommy kept walking, reminding himself that Derek didn't know what happened with Jude, that there was no way he could. "Guess you thought wrong."

"You're surprisingly tense," Derek said. "Did you not spend the last 48 hours getting laid?"

Tommy shot Derek a glare as he pushed to button to call the elevator. "Derek, there is a line, and you are on it."

Derek snorted. "Guess Jude wouldn't put out. Funny, she doesn't seem the frigid ty–"

Tommy whirled around, shoving Derek hard in the middle of the chest, but otherwise restraining himself. "Shut the hell up," he growled.

Derek just took a step back and laughed, putting his hands up. "It was only a joke. Jesus, you really need to learn to relax."

"And you need to learn to keep your fucking mouth shut," Tommy snapped. The doors to the elevator opened then, thankfully, and Tommy stepped in, putting a hand up to his head, which was starting to hurt.

"Noted," Derek said with a smirk, and waited until the elevator doors were almost shut to say, "So she _really_ wouldn't put out, then?"

Tommy just scowled and reached into his jacket pocket for his painkillers.

Things didn't get easier over the next couple of days. His headaches were worse and more frequent than they had been before he'd gone back to London, but he couldn't increase the dose of painkillers without making himself too sluggish and out of it to work, and, worse, risk using them all up before he was allowed a refill.

He desperately wanted to call Jude. He wanted to be able to tell her to come back to him, that he'd forgiven her completely and totally, that he could trust her again. But that would have been a lie, so he just tried not to let his every thought be of missing her. It was easier said than done. There was a techie on the tour, working sound, who looked somewhat like Jude from the back, and even though he _knew_ it wasn't her, his heart still clenched for a second every time he caught a glimpse of the girl out of the corner of his eye.

He lasted three days before he gave in to the desire to drink. On the third day, Jude sent him a rough demo of a song she'd written, and he listened to it on repeat for hours even though the sound of her voice felt like it would tear him apart from the inside out. He recognized the inspiration for the main line in the hook as something he'd said to her in their last conversation. Jude's voice was tight in some places in the recording, in a way that made him wonder if she was fighting tears, but it was still as beautiful as ever. After what felt like his hundredth listen, he couldn't take it anymore.

Chris found him just after one in the morning sitting at the small bar in the hotel, and sat down next to him. He ordered a drink for himself, and waited for a long moment before saying, "You alright, mate?" to Tommy, who just shrugged. Chris tried another question. "How is Jude?"

"She's fine," he mumbled.

"You and her aren't doing too well these days, huh?" Chris had a way of asking questions as if he were inquiring about something as simple as the weather, so even things that would have seemed prying from anyone else seemed nonchalant coming from him. Even Tommy, notoriously closed-off as he was, generally found Chris easy to talk to.

"What makes you say that?" Tommy replied, only half-sarcastically.

"Well, the drink was the first clue. No judgement, but I figure there's probably a reason you're drinking again."

Tommy gave a "hmph" but didn't say anything else, and Chris continued.

"You've also not been exactly Mr. Sunshine the last few days. Not that you're a sunny person in general, but it's been a little extreme, even for you. Not to be crude, but we all sort of expected you to come back with a grin plastered on your face after two days of reunion, you know. But it's been the opposite."

"Watch it," Tommy snapped, but without any real venom in his tone.

"Just an observation." He held his hands up. "The other thing is, well, producers don't typically tour, especially with bands who haven't even released a full-length album. Well-established producers who are also recovering from brain surgery _really_ don't. I mean, it's nice to have you, but there was obviously something going on for you to decide to join us. I think I've worked out what happened."

Tommy scoffed, looking down at his drink. "I doubt it."

Chris lowered his voice. "Something happened between her and that artist of hers, right? Benjamin?"

Tommy's head snapped up, checking to make sure no one was listening to them. "How the hell did you know that? Did Jude tell you?"

Chris's eyebrows shot up. "I _didn't_ know. It was just a guess. But I guess you just confirmed it. Wow. I was hoping I was wrong."

"How the hell would you even have guessed that? Are you telling me you saw it coming? Because I sure as hell didn't."

"No, no, absolutely not. But I've known Jude for long enough that her guilt wasn't too hard to spot. I didn't know exactly what had happened, but… Well, she was obviously really uncomfortable, being back at Bermondsey. Between that and the fact that she said she was going to quit working with him… It was a guess. Apparently a good one. But wow. She cheated? Slept with him?" Tommy nodded. "Damn. But just the once?" Chris asked, and Tommy nodded again. "So then it's, what, over between you?"

"I don't know," Tommy sighed. "I honestly have no idea. We tried to make it work, but…" He shrugged awkwardly and took a drink.

Chris looked at him for a moment, then said, "Christ, you've had a shit few months." Tommy actually snorted a laugh at that, at the massive understatement, and Chris said, "Well, that's as good a reason to drink as I've ever heard."

Tommy wryly muttered, "cheers," and lifted his glass slightly towards Chris before downing the rest of his drink and ordering another.

When Chris had finished his drink, he told Tommy he was going to head to bed. He started to walk away, but then doubled back and said, "Hey. For what it's worth, Jude really loves you." When Tommy just shrugged, he continued. "When she first came to London she used to cry. Not all the time or anything, but often enough. She'd try to hide it, and we didn't know her well enough to say anything to her about it, but you can tell when a girl has been crying, you know? That stopped after a few weeks, but she was still…" Chris sighed. "Tom, there was a side of Jude none of us saw until you came to London. There's a… Jesus, I don't know, joy, I guess? Or let me put it another way. I've only _really_ seen her light up in two situations. One is on stage, and the other is with you. Maybe I'm speaking out of turn, and no one would blame you for not staying with a woman who's cheated on you, but she just… she does. She loves you. So I guess I'm hoping it works out. For what it's worth."

There was a lump in Tommy's throat the size of a boulder, so he just swallowed hard and shrugged again.

Chris looked at him for a moment before putting a hand on his shoulder and saying, "Hey, don't drink too much, okay? Be smart about it, yeah?"

Tommy managed a "yeah," and Chris left the bar, leaving Tommy sitting with his head in his hands and a gaping hole where his heart used to be.


	44. Chapter 44

Jude didn't seek out celebrity gossip. Her years of experience with tabloid writers twisting the truth and inventing scandals where there were none made her more than skeptical of the things. If something printed about her was big enough to be important, she'd hear about it from her PR people, but to try and keep up with the gossip, even the stuff that involved her directly, was too tiring. She wasn't even in the habit of glancing at tabloid covers, since she never really had the opportunity anymore. Partly out of a desire not to deal with people harassing her in public, partly out of laziness, Jude had been having groceries delivered for a while now, only going out to the store herself occasionally.

So it was an unusual occurrence, a little over two weeks after Tommy's return to tour, when Jude ran out of coffee at home and stopped by the supermarket. In the checkout line, her own name on the front of one of the magazines caught her eye. The text was overly large, and read "EXCLUSIVE: TOMMY CHEATING ON JUDE?" Her first thought was that to put three question marks was serious overkill, and she almost laughed at how ridiculous the whole thing was, but then she looked at the pictures, two of them, taken moments apart and printed side-by side on the cover, and her heart dropped to her feet. It was unmistakably Tommy, with some tall, dark-skinned woman Jude didn't recognize. The photos were taken as they walked out of a building, her arm around his waist and his around her shoulders. His face was shown in the first photo. The second photo was worse. They weren't kissing, but they were very close together, and Tommy's head was turned to the girl, like he was whispering something in her ear. Jude felt the ghost of his lips on her own ear for a second, and it made her feel sick.

She hadn't realized she'd taken a step closer to pick up the magazine until a young female voice from beside her said, "Oh my god!" and she jumped. There was a girl standing behind her in the queue and staring at her. She looked maybe 16 or 17, and clearly recognized Jude. Her phone was in her hand, halfway up from her pocket, intending to take a picture.

"Don't even think about it, sweetheart," Jude snapped, pointing to the phone. "I'll smash that phone. I've done it before."

The girl didn't say anything, just nodded and put her phone away, looking freaked out. Her eyes were darting between Jude and the tabloid.

"What, this?" Jude asked in a breezy tone, putting back the magazine. She laughed a little, and hoped it didn't come off forced. "Seriously, I don't even know where they get this stuff." She smiled at the cashier as he scanned her groceries. "Do you know how many times I've been somewhere and seen a tabloid reporting I'm in rehab or something?" She laughed again and shrugged. "Price of fame, I guess."

"I just stock 'em, miss," the guy said. "Don't read 'em myself."

Jude just shrugged again and maintained her smile, though her mind was racing. She tried to think of an explanation for the picture, but none came, other than the obvious. But she and Tommy were separated, after all, and even if they had sort of agreed not to see other people, it wasn't exactly cheating. Even if it was, she'd still cheated first, and she didn't really have grounds to be angry at him. She tried to push away the feeling of betrayal.

As she left the store, she caught sight of the girl who'd tried to take a picture of her, and felt guilty for the way she'd snapped. She stopped the girl and apologized, saying that if she wanted a picture, she could have asked, but that people taking stalker pictures of her buying groceries got old fast. She let the girl take a selfie with her instead, and waved goodbye with a smile, trying to make sure the girl wouldn't leave the interaction forever telling stories of how rude Jude Harrison was to her fans.

Jude called Tommy as soon as she got in her car. The call went straight to voicemail. She let out a frustrated groan before hanging up and texting him, _"Hey we need to talk. Please call me as soon as you get this."_

.

Tommy saw the text a couple of hours later when he got the chance to charge his phone, and he sighed heavily when he read it. He had a sneaking suspicion he knew what this was about, but how had she known? _Paparazzi_ , he realized, and cursed himself for being such an idiot. Could they have been seen together in public? Probably. He couldn't remember. He'd been sad and wasted and doing anything he could to stop missing Jude, and the woman—an employee of the venue who'd come out after the concert to party with the bands—had been hitting on him all night. So he gave in, and went back with her to her apartment. For the first time since the year after Jude had broken off their engagement and left for London, Tommy made the mistake of trying to forget her by sleeping with another woman. If he was being honest, there was also a part of him that wanted revenge, for what she'd done with Benjamin. Even if they were separated now, whatever that meant, they'd sort of agreed not to see other people, and he knew this would hurt her if she found out.

But the sex had been disappointing at best, and, as it had every time he'd tried to forget Jude in the past, it made everything worse. The main thing he felt afterwards was guilty, missing Jude more than ever. It was a stupid mistake, and he wanted to forget it ever happened. More than anything, he wanted for Jude to never find out, the part of him that wanted revenge notwithstanding. But of course, _of-fucking-course_ the paparazzi would have gotten a shot, and of course Jude would have seen it.

Maybe he was just being paranoid, he told himself. Maybe this was about something else. But he had a bad feeling about it, and he stared at her contact in his phone for a long time, wanting to pretend the problem would go away if he just ignored it. Eventually he took one of his painkillers and dialed.

Jude had pulled up the picture on her phone and was staring at it, trying in vain to think of some reason—any reason—he'd have been standing this close to a woman besides that he was planning to sleep with her. When the phone rang, she answered immediately. She didn't say hello, just said, "So. Is it true?"

Tommy sighed heavily. "Is what true?"

"I think you know what." Her voice was quiet.

"Paparazzi got a pic?" he asked, sounding resigned.

"Yeah. It's all over the tabloids, and the internet, as far as I can tell."

"Since when do you read tabloids and gossip sites?"

She felt a twinge of irritation. "I don't. I went to the store to buy coffee, and it was kind of hard to miss. You're avoiding the question. So it is true, then?"

"I…" He hesitated, but eventually sighed again. "Yeah."

"You slept with her?" Jude whispered.

"Yes."

"Oh," was all she could bring herself to say. There was a long silence, then, "Who is she?"

"Does it matter?" he snapped.

"It might." Her voice was still small.

"She's no one. Just some girl."

"Some girl," Jude repeated.

"I didn't cheat," he protested, responding to an accusation she hadn't made. "That's not what this was. We're separated, right? And even if I had, you–"

"I know," she cut him off. "I didn't say you did. I didn't say I was angry, I didn't accuse you of anything. I just needed to know if it was true."

"When we talked about seeing other people, I didn't–"

"Didn't think that included having sex with random women?" Jude snapped, though she tried not to. She quickly said, "It doesn't matter. We both know I have no right to be angry, so I'm not going to be." She cleared her throat, trying not to let on how much this hurt her, despite her words. "But look, even if you and I know that, no one else does. So the fact that it's in the tabloids does kind of… force our hand."

"What does that even mean?"

"The picture's pretty bad, Tommy."

He gave another heavy sigh. "How bad?"

"Bad enough that I can't think of a way to claim it was nothing. I didn't accuse you of cheating, but the media has. We don't have a lot of options here."

Tommy felt sick. "You're saying we tell them we aren't together anymore."

"I… don't think we have another choice."

"Damn," he muttered.

"We can use the word separation, we can say it's a break, we–"

"Say whatever you want," he snapped. "I don't care."

"This one is not on me, Tom. This one isn't my fault." Keeping the hurt out of her voice was becoming harder.

"Let's not start assigning blame, Harrison," he said harshly. "You won't win."

She gave an exasperated sigh. "And there it is again. Thanks for reminding me why we decided we can't be together. I'd almost forgotten."

 _"You_ decided. You are the one who–"

"You put a hole in my wall," she hissed, cutting him off again. "I did what I had to do, but I wanted more than anything to make this work." Her voice cracked as she fought tears.

There was another long pause before he quietly said, "I'm sorry. For the hole in the wall, and the picture, and for leaving with her in the first place, and for not being able to let it go and forgive you… Jude, I… None of this is what I want, okay?"

"I know, Tommy." Her voice was gentle again. "I'm sorry too. And look, just because we release a statement, it doesn't mean it has to be final."

He took a deep breath, letting it out in a long sigh. "Yeah. Sure."


	45. Chapter 45

Tommy was spiraling, spinning out of control. He could feel it happening, but he couldn't quite summon the motivation to put a stop to it. He tried to at least keep himself disciplined with the drinking, confining the worst of it to the nights, when everyone else was drinking as well, and he tried to avoid mixing his painkillers with alcohol too much, but his will to exercise even that modicum of control was slipping fast. He wasn't even sure drinking helped anymore. He missed Jude just as horribly drunk as he did sober, at least until he drank enough that his thoughts were too slippery to hold on to her or to anything else, and even that left him with a vague grief as background noise. But when he was sober everything was too bright and too loud, too real and too painful. At least the drinking felt like it gave him some kind of insulation for the raw nerves.

Sober or drunk he was constantly irritable, his moods hard to control, and he snapped at everyone over everything. One night a roadie, a young guy who couldn't have been more than 20, made a wry comment under his breath from behind Tommy. He didn't even fully understand the words, just heard the name "Jude" and wheeled around, punching him in the jaw without even thinking. He felt guilty for it immediately. The kid, furious, swung back, and Tommy didn't fully dodge, letting the fist deliver a glancing blow to the side of his face. Then it was over and people pulled them apart. Tommy shook off the people holding him back and apologized. He bought enough rounds to ensure there wouldn't be a problem before heading back to his hotel room to torture himself by going through the pictures on his phone. Jude in the studio, Jude holding Caroline, Caroline sleeping, him holding Caroline, him and Jude, him and Jude, him and Jude so happy and carefree and in love with no inkling of what was to come.

After that he tried harder to cut back and to control his anger, but it only took another week for everything to fall apart. This time, it was Derek.

Derek was a loud drunk, with no filter and seemingly very little self-control. As intolerable as Tommy found him when sober, drunk Derek was ten times worse. Often Chris took it upon himself to keep the peace between the two of them, but tonight he was otherwise occupied, flirting hot and heavy with a guy in the corner of the room. Tommy had a killer headache, an already bad headache day made worse by the show they'd played that evening in Cardiff. Instead of going straight to bed like he should have, he'd come out with the bands to get a drink. He was halfway through his second glass of bourbon now, and he knew it had to be his last for the night. He'd been an idiot and taken a Vicodin with the first, and now the edges of his consciousness were starting to blur.

"Yeah, that's him. The one and only," Derek was laughing to a short blonde girl, walking up behind Tommy at the bar. "I don't see the fuss really. Maybe he was hot shit in the 90s or whatever, but now he's just kind of washed out. From superstar to roadie, not exactly an inspiring story."

"Derek!" the blonde giggled nervously. "I think he can hear you!"

Tommy fought not to get angry, to breathe deeply and ignore Derek's comment. He took another drink and tried to pretend he hadn't heard, or that he didn't realize they were talking about him.

"Don't get me wrong, he's a decent producer. Shit roadie, though."

Tommy clenched his jaw. _Ignore him. He's not worth it._

"Hey, Quincy," Derek said as he reached the bar. "What is it you're doing here anyway?"

Tommy turned sharply to him and hissed through clenched teeth, "Back the hell off, Derek."

Derek ignored his warning, gesturing to the girl. "Kim here says to me 'is that _really_ Little Tommy Q' and I say yeah, yeah, sure is. She's a fan, eh?"

Kim looked very uncomfortable, shifting from foot to foot, but she smiled at Tommy. "Sure. I was a big fan of Boyz Attack when I was younger. I had the wall of posters and everything. Had every one of your albums, listened to the CDs over and over 'til they were too scratched to work." Tommy tried to smile, but it must have looked more like a grimace, because Kim's smile fell and she backed up, tugging on Derek's sleeve. "I think we should go. I think he wants to be alone."

Derek ignored her, smirking at Tommy. "And you know, she's wondering, what's he doing here? And I realize that I don't really know either."

"Shut it, Derek. I'm fucking serious," Tommy threatened, more loudly.

"How _does_ one go from being the headliner of world tours to polishing guitars and carrying amps?"

Tommy stood, shoving Derek hard in the chest. "Shut. The fuck. Up."

Derek backed up, putting his hands up and laughing. "Hey, I'm just saying. Although, I guess there's not a very long way to fall from white jumpsuits and bandanas. Your whole career has been kind of a shit show, hasn't it?"

"Derek!" the girl gasped, eyes wide.

But Derek was on a roll, and he didn't stop. "Now, Jude, _she's_ got real talent. Girl's going places. Mystery why she'd stay with you."

"I will break your fucking jaw!" Tommy growled, taking a step towards Derek. He was unsteady on his feet, and he stumbled. "Don't you dare talk about her! You don't know anything!"

"Is that why you're here, Quincy? Jude left you? What, she finally get a taste of the alternative and–"

Tommy lunged forward and his fist connected with Derek's nose. The girl cried out as blood began to pour from Derek's face. Tommy tried to hit him again, but his reflexes were slowed by the alcohol and the meds, and Derek's fist was quick, connecting hard with Tommy's cheekbone. A white-hot spike of pain shot through his head, but he swung at Derek again. This time, Derek dodged, and Tommy didn't recover quickly enough to accommodate. The momentum sent him tripping forward into the bar, his forehead slamming hard into the edge. Tommy fell to the ground, slumped between two barstools. He heard the girl screaming, Derek crying, "shit! Holy shit!" and then Chris's voice shouting, "What the fuck did you do?! Tom! Tom!" before everything went dark.

.

Ten minutes after Jude got to the hospital, they wheeled Tommy back into the room after a CT scan. Her heart twisted—first with worry, then with anger—at the sight of the bandage on his forehead and the beginnings of a black eye.

His eyes widened a little when he saw her. "Jude, what–"

"Are you okay?" she asked in a tight voice, aware of the nurse still in the room. He just nodded. They sat there in silence for a long time as the nurse checked the machines. Finally, after telling them they'd have the results of the scan soon, the nurse left.

"How could you do this to me?" Jude asked at the same time Tommy said, "What the hell are you doing here?" They both sighed, exasperated, and Tommy looked away, putting his hands up to his head.

"Chris called me," Jude said in the calmest voice she could muster. "But even if he hadn't, someone would have, because I'm your emergency contact."

"So you drove all the way to fucking Cardiff?" He turned back to her, glaring.

"What am I supposed to have done?" Her calm was slipping. "Chris said you lost consciousness and they were taking you to the hospital! So tell me, Tom, what the hell am I supposed to do but drive to fucking Cardiff?" She stood up out of her chair.

"I'm fine!" he protested. "I… fell. It was nothing!"

"Oh, right," Jude laughed mirthlessly. "You _fell._ Do you think I'm stupid? Seriously?" Tommy just groaned and turned his head away. She lowered her voice again. "How could you do this to me?"

"Do this to you?" he asked, looking back up at her incredulously.

"Yes, Tommy," she snapped. "After everything, after Caroline, your accident, do you know what it was _like_ for me to get a call that you're being taken to the hospital?"

"Why do you even care?!" he cried.

"I wish I didn't!" she shouted back. She regretted it immediately when he flinched.

"That makes two of us," he muttered, looking down.

Jude's eyes filled with tears but she fought them back, sitting down again. After a long moment of them not looking at each other she quietly said, "You were drunk?" It wasn't really a question, since she knew the answer already.

He laughed once, hard and sharp. "Wish I still was."

"When did you start drinking again?" Her voice was still soft.

"Does it matter?" he snapped. Jude didn't reply, and he finally answered, "A few weeks. After I left London the second time." She looked up at him, and the pity in her eyes made him angry. He hissed, "Don't you dare judge me."

"I'm not!" she protested. "Tommy, I've never–"

"Fine! Okay!" he cut her off, putting his hand back up to his head.

After another minute of tense silence, Jude said, "Nora's going to be furious, you know."

"You talked to her?" He sounded angry.

Jude sighed. "No, but I'm sure someone did. If she doesn't know already then she will soon enough. You broke an artist's nose in the middle of a tour." She leaned her head back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling. "And Chris said this wasn't the first fight you've been in in the last few weeks, so honestly, Tom, I don't think you're going to be able to charm your way out of this one." Her voice was flat, toneless and exhausted.

Tommy sat straight up, his hands balling into fists. "Shut it, Harrison," he hissed, his voice low and furious. "None of this is any of your goddamn business."

She didn't look at him, just stared up at the ceiling tiles and continued in that same flat voice, "I know Little Tommy Q got away with this kind of shit. Squids in Paris hotel pool, firecrackers in toilets, trashing hotel rooms… Entitled boy diva getting into fist fights with roadies and getting away with it because he's so charming and talented and has the weight of a million record sales on his shoulders."

"Shut. The fuck. Up." Tommy was starting to shake with anger.

Jude did look at him, then, and her expression was pitying. "Losing Caroline, what I did, the accident… Even I can't really understand how hard these last few months have been for you. You've been through so much, and I am so, so sorry." Her voice turned cold. "But you know, there's a point where people stop feeling sorry for you, Tommy. There's a point where there's not an excuse anymore, and you've passed that point."

"Get out," he hissed. "Get the fuck out of here."

Jude ignored him, raising her voice. "The bad boy thing might have worked for a teenager. Mysterious Tommy Q, so sad and brooding and damaged. I hate to break it to you, Quincy, but you're almost 30! You're not a superstar anymore! On you it's just pathetic," she spat. She knew instantly she'd gone too far, regretting the words even as they came out of her mouth.

"Out!" Tommy bellowed, standing up. "Get the fuck out!"

"Oh God, Tommy, I didn't–" Jude tried to apologize, but he wasn't even hearing her anymore, his face bright red.

"How dare you?!" he shouted. "How dare you say any of that to me after what you did?! Like this isn't all your fucking fault!" He tried to come at her, but he was still connected to machines, one of which started beeping as he pulled some wire out. A nurse, having heard the shouting, came into the room, eyes wide, protesting for Tommy to calm down. Tommy, red-faced, shouted again at Jude, "Get out! I want you out!"

She held up her hands, frightened. "I'm going!" she cried. The nurse shot Jude a frown as she ushered Tommy back into bed. He just kept glaring at her over the nurse's shoulder.

"Tommy, I'm so sorry." Jude's eyes filled with tears. "I didn't mean that. I didn't."

"Yeah you did," he spat.

Now that Tommy was safely back in the bed, the nurse rounded on Jude, frowning, obviously prepared to kick her out of the room if she didn't leave. Jude stifled a sob behind her hand and headed out the door.


	46. Chapter 46

**A/N:** Let me say first that the reviews are constantly super buggy. The site doesn't always sync reviews right away, but I get email alerts, so I do read them as they come in. If your review doesn't show up, **no need to post multiple times** , I've almost certainly seen it, and it'll show up on the site usually within a few days once the website stops being the worst.

 **ALSO:** This week's second update will come Friday, as Saturday is Christmas Eve and I will be traveling to/at my grandma's house, probably with no wifi. Have a happy holidays, whichever holidays it is you celebrate. Sorry I don't have a more festive update :)

Now, to address more of the constant Jude hate. My favorite thing.

What you seem to be forgetting, anon friend, is that Jude _has_ been on her knees begging for forgiveness. At no point has she _ever_ been "nonchalant about the cheating." I honestly cannot imagine where you're getting that idea. This point of the story represents _months_ of nothing but contrition on Jude's part (with the possible exception of her objection to his calling her a whore in chapter 15, and I will ferociously defend the validity of that objection). It's not as if she told him what she did and then the next day was like "why haven't you forgiven me yet?" Cheating is not something you just get past, but there is still a limit to the amount of time and the amount of torment it's valid to expect someone to suffer in order to atone for a mistake. At a certain point, the wronged party has to either figure out how to forgive and move on, or choose to end the relationship. Tommy is unwilling and unable to let go of his anger, but he's also been unwilling to let go of Jude. Both are understandable, either may be valid, but they cannot coexist forever. Something has to give. (I also have a lot of opinions about the validity of someone with Tom's long history of infidelity and mistreating Jude being _this_ unwilling to forgive, but whatever. My opinion on that front will continue to come out in the story since I'm the one writing it.)

And as for Tom, being cheated on does not absolve someone of all responsibility to behave like a reasonable adult. It certainly gives him the right to be hurt, the right to be angry, and the right to struggle with trusting Jude again. He also would have the right to end their relationship if he wanted, which he hasn't done. He has the right to feel pretty much whatever he wants, but he does not have the right to _do_ whatever he wants. Having been cheated on does _not_ give him the right to break someone's nose. It does _not_ give him the right to smash Jude's phone. Being cheated on is not an excuse to drink and fight. It just isn't. _Having cheated_ also does not deprive Jude of her right to not have to fear her partner. It does not deprive her of the right to be hurt when he says terrible things, and it doesn't deprive her of the right to call him on it, either. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the things she said in the last chapter were justified, but I do think the emotional reaction is understandable. But never let it be said that I don't have empathy for Tommy, because I do, immensely, and I think I have given his perspective equal weight and validity. He has lashed out and he has relapsed and he has been cruel, but he's done all of those things for understandable reasons. Having a reason to do something still doesn't make it right.

I am continually _astounded_ by the complete lack of empathy you have for Jude. Obviously everyone's perspective is different, and I've tried not to question the validity of that difference, but I _cannot imagine_ how you read what I've written and come up with a character who is so different from the one I write, other than maybe that you approach the story at every turn looking for new reasons to hate her. I thought maybe it was just strong opinions about the unforgivability of cheating, but then you got pissed about Jude being rude to Benjamin, of all people (which? was she? I don't see it. At least not in that chapter.) All interpretation of fiction is subjective to an extent, but at a certain point you're inventing a character that is not the one on the page. (Nonchalant about the cheating? Really?) I don't expect you to change your mind, and I'd never ask you to stop reviewing, but know that I am constantly baffled (and more than a little offended) by how much you hate Jude.

To AR: Rollercoaster is definitely the word for it! Also I love that your opinion on whether Jude is in the right always aligns with mine haha

To sool47: I think Tommy and Jude torment each other in similar ways in-canon. Jude is also canonically very emotional. She's more mature here, if only because she is quite a bit older and more experienced, but I write her that way (that is, prone to emotional outbursts) because I see it as in keeping with her character the way she is in the show. She's an emotional person, and not exactly the epitome of restraint. I see your point about Tommy needing someone who'd be the calm to his storm, but I wonder if what you're imagining in someone "super mature, experienced, calm and patient" is someone who'd _indulge_ inappropriate behavior rather than calling him on it. Jude certainly may not call him on things in the most constructive of ways, but the fact that she does confront him is not the problem in itself. Tommy is damaged for various reasons, but he's also an adult, and I don't know that it's fair to expect someone's romantic partner to fix them. Another thing I think is in-character for Tommy and (especially) Jude is this absolutely ferocious, tenacious refusal to let go, no matter what obstacles are facing them or how miserable they are. You can say a lot about them and the dysfunction of their relationship, but they certainly fight for each other. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is probably up for debate. The question then is whether the greater victory in the context of this story lies with them ending up together or ending up apart. I have an opinion on that, but I'll reserve it for the end. I guess at that point you'll have to decide for yourself if you think the way I've written it is believable or not.

Anyway, thank you to everyone who continues to review this story. Hearing other people's perspectives after years with only my own is always an enlightening experience. Sorry these author's notes always get so long!

* * *

Jude sat in the waiting room and bit her nails until a few of her fingers had started to bleed. Even though Tommy obviously didn't want her there, she couldn't bring herself to leave, at least not until she knew for sure he was okay. The memory of his face, red and furious, made her feel sick. She hadn't meant to yell at him at all, had meant to just check if he was okay, but she'd been so scared and so angry, and she'd let her emotions get the better of her, had lost control and gone way too far.

"Jude Harrison?" a voice asked from in front of her, and Jude looked up with a sigh, expecting a fan. Her pulse quickened when she saw a man in scrubs standing in front of her.

"That's me, is Tommy…" her eyes were wide and scared.

"Everything is fine," he reassured her. "He asked that I update you, if you were still here. I'm Doctor Howell."

Jude reached out and took the doctor's outstretched hand. "But everything is okay?"

"Yes," the doctor confirmed. "Scans don't show any bleeding, no skull fractures, no swelling… Everything is more or less as it should be. It would be a mild concussion at most, under ordinary circumstances. Unfortunately, with his previous injuries, he'll likely experience a re-escalation of his symptoms over the next couple of weeks."

"The hand weakness and stuff?" Jude asked.

He shrugged. "Possibly, but more likely the headaches, the difficulty concentrating, the fatigue, the mood swings, the combativeness, all of that. If it worsens very quickly or gets _much_ worse–"

"Wait," Jude interrupted, "the what? Mood swings?"

"Well," the doctor shrugged again, "yes. The symptoms that landed him here tonight, from what I understand. Agitation, mood swings, difficulty controlling anger… It's relatively common with patients recovering from traumatic brain injury."

"Wait, no, that's just… he's always been…" she trailed off, thinking of Tommy throwing her phone, of the way little things would set him off, how sometimes in the span of a minute he could go from laughing with her to snapping at her to leave him alone. Would he have done that before he got hurt? She'd blamed the circumstances, blamed herself, blamed his anger with her, but what if that's not all it was?

"It may be," the doctor was saying, "but I wouldn't doubt that the injury has had an exacerbating effect. Medically, there's not much that can be done for it, but therapy can be beneficial, and there are support groups and the like. And having a supportive partner goes a long way." He smiled at Jude and she felt sick, thinking of all the horrible things she just said to Tommy, how angry she'd been. The doctor asked, "Is there anything else I can answer for you?" and Jude just shook her head, feeling even worse as he walked away.

.

Tommy looked up when Jude pulled back the curtain. He frowned when he saw it was her. "What are you doing here?

"They're discharging you. I have to drive you home," Jude said in a small voice, not meeting his eyes. "They said you're not supposed to drive for a couple days until you can get cleared by the neurologist."

Tommy gave a heavy sigh. "Right. Fine."

She looked up at him and said softly, "Tommy, I didn't mean what I said."

"Don't," he said sharply.

"But Tommy–"

"Stop!" he snapped. "I don't want to hear it!"

She spoke quickly so he couldn't cut her off. "I shouldn't have said any of that, it was out of line. I was angry and scared and I–"

"Jude!" Tommy cried. "I swear to God! Just don't!"

"I know it's not your fault," Jude said softly.

Tommy scoffed. "Whatever."

"The anger, the mood swings, Tommy, it's a symptom. I didn't know." Her eyes filled with tears. "It isn't your–"

He laughed once, hard and sharp. "This is exactly me. This is who I've always been."

Jude shook her head. "You've come so far, Tommy, you've–"

"Shut _up_ , Jude," he groaned. "For fuck's sake! I don't want to hear it, okay? We are _not_ having this conversation."

She sighed, and softly said, "Fine. But Tommy, I mean it. I'm so sorry."

"Whatever," Tommy mumbled, rolling his eyes as he pulled on his jacket.

.

The drive back to London was three and a half hours of tense, painful silence. Tommy kept his face turned toward the window and his jaw set, giving no indication that he heard her the few times she tried to speak to him. Jude thought maybe he was just tired, that things would improve after they got home and got some rest, but the silent treatment continued. He took his pillow and a blanket to the couch in the music room, resolutely ignoring her protests, with nothing but the clenching of his jaw to indicate he'd even heard her at all. She tried to apologize again, begged him to talk to her, but he wouldn't meet her eyes, actually laying down and pretending to be asleep. Finally she gave up and gave in to her own fatigue. When she woke, it was late afternoon. She wandered through the apartment calling Tommy's name until she saw a scrap of paper sitting on the counter. There was one word scribbled on it: "Out –T"

Frustration bubbled up in her and she crumpled the note in her fist. She tried to console herself by saying that he had at least left a note, had at least acknowledged her presence in the apartment and decided to do something, however small, to prevent her from worrying when he disappeared without telling her. Tears pricked at her nose anyway.

She tried to write, an attempt to get out the thoughts and emotion that felt like they were suffocating her, but she was as blocked as ever. She gave up after a couple of hours spent mostly playing on her phone, and walked out just as Tommy was coming down the hallway. His expression hardened as he saw her, and he looked down at the floor as he tried to walk past her.

"Wait," she said, putting her arm out in front of him and forcing him to stop walking. "Tommy, where–"

"Don't." He met her eyes for the first time in almost 24 hours. He didn't look angry so much as sad and exhausted, and his voice was quiet when he said, "Please."

She could smell the alcohol on his breath, and her heart sank. "Tommy…" she sighed.

He looked back down at the ground and pushed past her into the music room, shutting the door behind him. She heard the lock engage.

.

Jude tried to give Tommy space the next day, hoping that he just needed some time to himself to process everything. She left for work almost an hour earlier than she needed to, and went out to dinner with Emily so she didn't need to come home right away. When she did return to the apartment, she called Tommy's name. She received no response, but she could hear the sound of the television from the living room. She found Tommy sitting on the couch, a near-empty glass in his hand, and a bottle of what looked to be scotch on the coffee table.

"Seriously?" Jude asked, trying and failing to suppress her irritation. She flipped on the lights in the hope that it would cause a reaction, but Tommy kept his gaze focused on the TV. "Tommy," she said his name again. "You at least have to look at me." He took another drink from the glass in his hand, and did not respond. Jude let out a frustrated huff and left the room, returning with a glass of her own. She sat down next to Tommy and picked up the bottle, saying "cheers" sarcastically and pouring herself a glass.

When he still hadn't acknowledged her after a minute, she reached for the remote and turned off the TV. He shifted, and she saw his jaw clench, but he still didn't give any other acknowledgement of her presence, taking another drink. "Seriously, Tommy?" she asked again after a moment. "Can you please look at me? We need to talk."

He sighed heavily and set the glass down on the table, preparing to get up and leave.

Finally she said, "I talked to Kwest about you today."

That finally got his attention. He turned sharply to look at her. "You what?" he snapped.

Jude kept her voice even. "I talked to Kwest. I called him and I told him what happened."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Tommy cried. "What the hell could have possibly made you think that was okay?"

Jude flinched a little, but kept her voice calm. "You're going to lose your job, Tommy."

"And that's Kwest's business how?"

"He talked to Jamie and Zeppelin."

Tommy stood up from the couch, glaring down at her. "This was so far out of line, Jude," he hissed. "I cannot even believe you would–"

She spoke over him, loudly enough to cut him off. "Jamie is going to offer you a job."

Tommy's eyebrows shot up, then he frowned. "Wait, what?"

"Jamie and Zeppelin are going to offer you a job. I think he's going to call you tomorrow. They're going to offer you a short-term contract, producing at NBR, and you need to take it."

"I _need_ to take it?" Tommy asked incredulously. "I _need_ to take a job _in Toronto?"_

"You need to work, or everything is just going to keep getting worse."

"Nora hasn't even–"

"She will. She talked to Derek today, and that's the last thing she needed to do before–"

Tommy let out a frustrated growl, putting his hands to his head. "None of this is any of your business!"

Jude sighed. "I love you, Tommy." He looked back at her incredulously, and she continued, "I just want you to be happy."

"Yeah?" He gave a short, sharp laugh. "I'm sure."

She groaned. "Don't do this."

"You want me to move back to Toronto. That's what you're telling me?"

"I think you have to."

"If you want me out, Jude, that's all you had to say." He looked hurt for half a second, though he quickly transformed his expression back into a glare. "If you want me gone, I'm gone."

"I don't!" she protested, but he was already walking out of the room. She followed him to the bedroom, where he was re-packing his only partially unpacked suitcases. "Tommy!" she cried. "Stop! This is not about me wanting you to leave!" He ignored her, so she reached out and grabbed his arm, trying to force him to turn towards her.

He turned, pushing her hand away. His expression was furious now. "Don't," he hissed.

"Tommy, you're not okay."

He scoffed and went back to the closet, pulling shirts off of hangers, and muttered, "Who said I was?"

"I don't want you to go," she said softly, her voice breaking a little. "I don't." He didn't turn to her, but he froze, stopped grabbing clothes. "I will never want you gone. But Tommy, this? This is not you being with me. This is not _you_."

Tommy sighed and turned to the bed, putting the shirts in his hands into his bag. "This is exactly me," he said quietly.

"No, it isn't," she protested. "Look, I don't know if… I don't know if I can really be happy without you. But I don't think you can be happy _with_ me anymore." Her eyes filled with tears again as she said it. "You look at me and you only see what I did, and everything we lost, and–"

He whipped around to look at her. "Don't do that. Don't pretend you know what's going on in my head."

"I just want you to be okay." A few of the tears escaped her eyes. "I called Kwest because I didn't know what else to do. I think if you can work, and get away from here, away from me, then maybe–"

"That is not your place to decide, Jude!" he cried.

"I'm just trying to help you," she said with a little sob. "Tommy, please. I'm trying to–"

He had turned away again, zipping up the bag. He slung it over his shoulder and turned back to her, glaring, and cut her off. "You're trying to _fix_ me," he snapped. "I would think that after all these years you'd have finally figured out that that's impossible."


	47. Chapter 47

**A/N:** As promised, update Friday. I know this is a bit short, but I actually won't even be back in town for sure until next Wednesday, with probably little to no wifi, so no update between now and then. If you celebrate any of the many holidays that are this week, then happy holidays! I hope they're merry and bright and all of those festive adjectives! Again, sorry this is kind of a bummer of a Christmas update lol.

Sool47: Thank you for your review, you made some very good points, and made me realize the way I wrote this isn't as clear as it maybe should've been. It's not so simple as all of it not being his fault. Traumatic brain injury is very complicated, especially when it comes to its possible effects on mood. Not all TBI patients experience issues with mood swings (it depends on where the brain is injured), and a TBI patient with a history of angry outbursts and a concrete reason to be angry/at which to direct anger (like Tommy) wouldn't necessarily be able to blame the head injury. Because you're right, there's an aspect to this of Tommy and Jude both being used to/expecting him to be angry and to mistreat Jude in that way, so they would both blame the situation and not the injury. Generally what causes people to realize that their emotional state is being affected as a symptom is emotional outbursts with no cause, and that's not really what Tommy was experiencing. Being in pain also causes people to be emotionally volatile, so that's an additional aspect. Tommy is using alcohol to self-medicate, both for the pain (physical and emotional) and for any mood issues that are being caused directly by the brain injury, which is Not Helping.

I also realize I didn't make this clear at all, but I didn't imagine it as a failure of Jude to ask Tommy's doctor about symptoms, but as a failure of Tommy's primary doctor to realize there _were_ symptoms. With everything going on, it wouldn't occur to Tommy or Jude to believe mood swings or issues with anger would be a symptom to report. It's also a fairly nebulous symptom that some doctors (I want to say particularly a surgeon? But that's maybe my own bias talking) might overlook in the context of all of the other injuries (and I say this from experience, one doctor can overlook something for months that another doc sees as an obvious symptom in a 10 minute exam in an emergency room... medicine is complicated). I probably didn't do as good a job as I could have in making it clear that the line between Tommy's behavior based on the situation/who he is as a person/longstanding issues with anger and his behavior based on the symptoms of the brain injury isn't anything near absolute. If I had it to do completely over, I might leave out the aspect of it being a possible symptom altogether, because I'm not sure I've executed it well. Either way, I never intended the plotline to absolve Tommy of all responsibility for his actions.

* * *

Jude was rinsing her dinner plate the next evening when she heard the sound of the apartment door opening. She stepped into the front hall, surprised, to see Tommy standing there. When she met his eyes, he looked away, down at the floor, and she sighed. "Did you forget something?"

He looked back up at her and shook his head. "No. That's not why I'm here." Jude raised her eyebrows, and Tommy looked away again, but continued. "I talked to Nora. She, uh, terminated my contract, so… That happened. I'm officially fired."

She sighed again. "I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "That's not what I came to tell you either. I, um… I wanted to tell you that you were right. I'm not… This isn't working."

Jude nodded, feeling tears threatening. She took a deep breath and said, "Yeah, I know. It hasn't been for a long time."

"I also talked to Jamie and Zeppelin. They're offering me a job. A short contract, just for a few months, finishing up Spiederman's latest album."

"That's great," Jude said with as much enthusiasm as she could manage. "Are you…"

He nodded. "I said yes. I leave next week. Tuesday."

Jude failed to hide her shock. "Whoa, that soon? Seriously?"

He nodded again. "You were right, I need to work, and I really need to… get away, for a while. Away from this place, and…"

"Away from me," she finished softly.

He looked pained. "Jude…"

"It's okay, Tommy. I get it. I told you, I just want you to be okay, even if you need to leave for that to happen."

"It's not just that." He shook his head. "You deserve better."

"None of this is your fault," she said quietly.

"You're wrong about that." He shook his head again. "I've been awful to you." He looked down again, and his next words looked like they were extremely difficult for him to say. "I'm not coping anymore," he mumbled. "I haven't been for a while, I… need help. Like… professionally. And I'm going to try to get that." He looked up at her and spoke, more loudly, before she could respond. "My stuff is in my car. Do you mind if I stay here until I leave? So I can pack and stuff?"

"Yeah, of course." Jude nodded. "Always."

"Thanks."

He started to turn back to the door and she said "Wait, Tommy." He turned back to look at her and she said "For what it's worth, I think you're going to be great, at NBR. Nora made the wrong choice."

"No she didn't," Tommy sighed, shaking his head, then gave her a small half-smile. "But thanks."

… ... … ... …

Tommy set the last bag down in front of the door and turned back to look at Jude. "So that's everything, then, I think," he said, shifting a little awkwardly. Since he told her he was moving back to Toronto, they'd been awkward, overly cordial, more like roommates who barely knew each other than anything. It was better than the silent treatment, Jude thought, but not by that much.

"Good," she said, with a false brightness, though her insides were all in knots. "Well, um… if you need anything, like, if you get there and realize you forgot something or whatever, just let me know and I can send it."

"Thanks." He nodded, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. "I, uh… I guess… this is it, then."

Jude's insides squeezed painfully, like a fist gripping her heart. "Okay," she said, and her voice sounded choked. She cleared her throat and tried to ignore the feeling that her chest was caving in.

He hesitated, looking pained, but then nodded again and said, "Bye, Jude."

As he started to turn, she said, "Wait." Before she could stop herself, she closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him. He pulled back, surprised, and she breathed, "Sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't–"

"Hey," he cut her off, putting a hand on her cheek. "It's okay." His expression was sad as he leaned down and kissed her. He deepened the kiss, his fingers tangling in her hair, and she pressed herself against him. She knew, even as she slipped his jacket from his shoulders and he started to pull her in the direction of the bedroom, that they both knew this was no reconciliation, no last-ditch effort to keep him in London. This was goodbye.

So they made love in a bed full of ghosts for what they both knew was the last time. Jude cried, tears pouring down her cheeks. Tommy did his best to wipe them away, holding in his own tears until afterward, when she curled up with her head on his chest and he could hide his face. He tried not to feel like he was being ripped apart, tried to remember all the reasons he had to leave, why this was the right choice, the only choice. They lay together for a long time until Tommy finally shifted and broke the silence. "Jude," he said softly, stroking her hair. "My flight. I have to go."

Her arms tightened around him for a second as panic shot through her, but then she forced herself to let go. She sniffled and sat up, wiping the last of the tears from her cheeks and nodding. "Okay."

He sat up and pulled her face gently towards his to kiss her forehead, letting his lips linger there, then bowing his head to press his forehead against hers for a moment before pulling away and getting up to put on his clothes.

She pulled the sheets up to her chest and watched him as he got dressed. As he was pulling his shirt over his head, she softly said, "We hurt each other." She heard Tommy sigh and she closed her eyes, whispering, "All we've ever done is hurt each other."

"Don't say that." She opened her eyes, surprised, and saw that he'd turned to look at her. He held her gaze for a moment, then said, "Look, I know… Things have been really bad, really hard, for a long time, but even with the way it's…" He sighed again and shut his eyes for a moment. "Even with the way this is… ending." He looked back at her and said firmly, "You're still the best thing that ever happened to me."

She breathed in sharply. "Tommy…" Her voice was choked.

"There's a lot that I regret, but I'll never regret loving you." His voice broke a little and he looked away again, over at the clock. "I have to go," he said quietly. He looked back at her, and hesitated for a moment before saying, "Take care, Jude."

She couldn't speak, so she just nodded. He gave her one last long, sad look before turning away and leaving the room.


	48. Chapter 48

**A/N:** Hello again everyone. I am back in the land of internet to provide you with this chapter!

To my Jude-hating reviewer: you made some reasonable points in your review to chapter 46. I still don't agree with your perspective, and I don't think Jude deserves the amount of venom that's in a lot of your reviews, but I do understand better now where it's coming from. Your distaste for Jude's attitude makes sense in a lot of ways, so I am no longer entirely baffled by the way you interpret the story. I still don't agree that Jude should be expected to give up her career in penance. Not being willing to burn down your entire life for the person you love does not mean you don't love them, and it doesn't make you not sorry. But I will easily concede that yes, definitely, if she had gone to Tommy from the beginning, said "I talked to Nora and these are my only two options: leave Bermondsey or do a duet," had _included_ him in the decision rather than making it without telling him, then keeping it from him, then Tommy would've reacted much more reasonably. Maybe it would have even been enough to keep them moving forward on the road to reconciliation, rather than what actually happened which catalyzed their further falling apart. But hey, people and characters don't always make what is in retrospect the right decision. Jude has never been the pinnacle of mature and rational decision-making, and neither has Tommy. She also provided her own defenses ("I put off telling you because I was scared," as well as the fact that she didn't tell him right away because she thought maybe she could get out of it and avoid the situation altogether) that I think are reasonable, given the way Tommy had been treating her before he left.

Jude definitely hasn't made the most mature decisions in this story, but Jude as a character never has. She reacts emotionally more than logically, and she does that... pretty much literally always. She's _not_ sweet and calm and patient, especially not when she's hurting. That's not the character portrayed in Instant Star, and the amount of growing up that she has done in these stories since then doesn't necessarily change her personality. A Jude who _always_ reacts with calm and patience to Tommy's anger is a Jude that's profoundly out of character, in my opinion. (Plus, if she _had_ made all the mature and rational decisions... where's the story?) I still don't think she's the unapologetic/whiny/entitled child you're constructing.

It also seems like you think I'm harsher on Tommy than I am. I really don't think I ever had "everyone taking her side" at any point, and I honestly never thought of any of what happens in this story as being all his fault, up to and including the drinking. It's a choice he makes, in a sense, but it's also an addiction, and a relapse of an addiction can't fairly be viewed as a moral failing, especially in the context of everything else he's facing. (The violence I'm less willing to excuse, but that's me.) Maybe this chapter and the next will restore a little of your faith that I haven't had everyone abandon Tommy. Or, who knows, maybe it won't. (A warning, though: please remember that another thing that is _profoundly_ in-character for Tom Quincy is self-loathing. The views he presents of himself aren't necessarily my own.)

* * *

Being back in Toronto was all kinds of surreal. Tommy was staying with Kwest until he could find a place of his own, but Kwest was still living in Tommy's old apartment, having taken over the lease when Tommy moved to London, and being back in the apartment brought back a barrage of memories of a Jude he'd almost forgotten in all the intervening years. Kwest had changed a lot about the place, including nearly all of the furniture and decor, and even some of the paint and appliances, but too many things were still the same.

As the sun was just starting to set, Tommy looked out at the view of the city through the picture window and remembered the first time Jude had ever been here. She had been that headstrong, stubborn redhead, a few weeks out from her 16th birthday. It seemed impossibly young now, and impossibly long ago. He'd picked her up to bring her to the studio, but had forgotten something or other at home, so he'd brought her back here so he could grab it. She had grown visibly nervous as she followed him into the apartment, uncharacteristically quiet and standing very still and stiff. He'd watched her take in the room. When her eyes had landed on the window, they had widened, and she'd walked over and looked out at the view of the city. At the wonder on her face, he'd smiled involuntarily, felt an already familiar twinge of something he'd known he needed to repress while she was still so very young, while she was dating Shay, while the timing had been wrong for so many reasons. He couldn't have imagined the years to come.

"Hey," Kwest's voice came from behind him.

Tommy turned. "Hey." He tried to rearrange his features into something resembling a smile, or at least to hide the grief he felt, but judging by the sad look on Kwest's face, he failed.

"How you doing, T?" Kwest asked.

Tommy shrugged. "Fine. It's weird being back here, but I'm fine."

Kwest sat down on the couch and continued to look sadly at him. "Yeah? You sure you're okay?" He asked the question with a gentleness Tommy found irritating. Jamie and Zeppelin had been like this too, walking on eggshells. He hated that his friends thought he needed to be handled with kid gloves now, that he'd reached the point where even Kwest was tiptoeing around him.

Tommy sighed and sat in the armchair. "I don't know, man," he muttered.

"Have you talked to Jude at all?"

"No. But that's kind of the point of this, isn't it? We're over. I screwed it up."

"It wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was." Tommy shook his head. "Can we just drop this?" he snapped. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Yeah, 'course," Kwest said, but didn't say anything else for a long moment.

Tommy shut his eyes with another sigh and quietly said, "I can't believe I screwed everything up again. I tried so hard to make it work and I just… fucked it up, all over again. And this time it's for good. I left, I failed her _again._ "

"From what Jude said, it didn't sound like either of you had much choice. She's basically the one who arranged this job, that's not the same as you leaving her."

"No, it's worse." He opened his eyes and looked at Kwest, frowning. "She told me to leave."

"Yeah, exactly, that's what I'm saying. How does that make this your fault?"

"Because I've been treating her like shit, Kwest. It got so bad that the only thing she felt like she could do was ask me, practically _beg_ me, to move to another fucking continent."

"She cheated on you, T, that's not nothing."

Tommy shook his head, looking back down at the floor in front of him. When he spoke his voice was soft. "When I first found out about the pregnancy, when we disagreed about whether to keep the baby, the first thing I did was scream in her face, and then I ran halfway across the world without telling her where I was going. She was 21, and pregnant, and scared of losing her career, and instead of trying to understand that, I _left her._ I was gone for two days, with no contact."

"You came back," Kwest said, still in that same gentle voice.

Tommy looked up at him. "And when I came back, Jude would have been completely justified in shouting at me, or leaving me, or… But she didn't. She didn't yell, she didn't tell me she couldn't trust me anymore, we didn't even fight about it, Kwest!" He was getting worked up now, his voice raising in volume. "Instead, she went out of her way to comfort _me_ while she was the one laying in a fucking hospital bed, and then she decided she wanted to have a kid with me, man. She forgave me, like it was nothing." His voice cracked a little and he looked back down at the floor. "So yeah, she cheated on me, and it wasn't nothing. It sucked, and it _hurt,_ but it was just one mistake, and I knew that. I knew. Me, of all people, I can't pretend I don't understand how something like that can happen. I should've been able to forgive her. If it were me, she'd have forgiven me months ago. She's _always_ forgiven me, for every horrible thing I've ever done to her. But I just couldn't let it go, so I ruined the most important thing in my life." He put his head in his hands.

Kwest was silent for a long time before saying, "Maybe the story's not over. Maybe you both just need some time."

Tommy shook his head. "I can't afford to think that. Besides, I tried that already, remember? Taking a break? Nah, man. This was it this time. She deserves better, anyway. All I've ever been is bad for her."

"That's not true. You were good to her, T. You were good together, and you were a good dad. Don't forget that."

Tommy shook his head again. "That was before."

There was another long pause before Kwest said, "She didn't tell you to leave because she wanted you gone. When she called me, what she said was 'he's not okay.' She was concerned about you. She wasn't angry. This isn't your–"

"Stop!" Tommy cried, looking back at Kwest. "Stop! I don't want you to defend me! Shit!"

For the first time, Kwest looked irritated. "Fine. What do you want me to say?" he asked, his voice harder than before. "Do you want me to call you out for breaking a guy's nose? Do you want me to yell at you for drinking again? Do you want me to tell you that you need to get your shit together? Fine, Tommy, you need to get your shit together." His voice softened again. "But that's why you're here. Because you know that. I know this sucks, but I think if you can turn it around, channel it into recovery, then maybe it'll be worth it. So go ahead and take your share of the responsibility, by all means, but you can't blame yourself for all of it, and you can't blame yourself as an excuse to give up. You've always done this, you know? You like to think of yourself as a lost cause, but it's not true. You've been through some impossible shit this year. Sure, you've made some mistakes, and obviously so did Jude, but a lot of it wasn't in your control. Caroline, the cheating, the accident, even the drinking, there's a lot that isn't your fault. You _cannot_ put all of this on yourself. Even though you made mistakes, falling into that self-hate spiral of yours isn't gonna do you any good. So I'm serious, man, you've gotta stop blaming yourself."

Irritation and gratefulness fought each other in Tommy's mind for a long moment as he looked at his friend. Eventually he rolled his eyes, but smiled a little. "You should've been a shrink, Kwest." He said it in a tone that was dry and sarcastic enough that Kwest laughed.

"Point taken." Kwest shook his head, then spoke sincerely again. "I'm just trying to help, man. Let you know that I believe in you and shit."

"Thanks, I guess?"

Kwest glanced at his watch. "Hey, I gotta go meet Sadie. You good?"

Tommy nodded. "I'm fine. Really."

Kwest stood up from the couch and started to leave the room, but turned around before he reached the door. "Hey," Kwest said softly. Tommy looked up at him and raised his eyebrows. "Maybe instead of spending all your time thinking about what you lost, try to think about what you might be able to get back? Not necessarily Jude," he added hastily, seeing Tommy about to protest. "I mean yourself, man. Yeah?" Tommy didn't say anything, and Kwest shrugged after a moment. "Just think about it."


	49. Chapter 49

He should have called in sick, Tommy realized, as he walked through the front doors to NBR. As soon as he woke up and realized his mistake, as soon as he remembered he was scheduled to work, he should've just texted Jamie and Spiederman to say he needed to come in a few hours late. To say he was sick, that his headache would have made focusing on music impossible, wouldn't have even been a lie. But instead, here he was, the combined effects of Vicodin and bourbon filling his head with fog. Nearly stumbling as he headed in the direction of the studio, he instantly knew he'd fucked up, and majorly.

This week had been hard, to say the least. He'd been in Toronto a little over two weeks, and he'd just moved into a new apartment within walking distance of NBR. The place was pre-furnished, but sparsely decorated, and he'd packed too lightly from London to add any kind of real personal touches to it. The walls were almost mockingly bare. Their place in London, by contrast, was covered in photos, a result of Jude's sentimental streak. She'd given him a few to take with him, a couple from tour of them with the band, one of him and Kwest and Jude and Sadie at Jamie's wedding, and one of Jude holding Caroline that he hadn't yet been able to bring himself to unpack from the box. He tried hanging a couple, but they only seemed to emphasize how blank the rest of the walls were. Being in the new place felt empty and foreign and lonely, and he wasn't sure whether or not that was worse than the memories that had been a constant presence at Kwest's apartment. He'd thought he'd been eager to get away from Kwest's sad, watchful sympathy, but the small amount of relief brought by the solitude was tempered by the loneliness and the stress of being alone with his thoughts.

The six month anniversary of Caroline's death was in two days. He tried to tell himself that it was arbitrary, that marking the date shouldn't have any particular meaning. It was just a day like any other day, he told himself, and she was no more dead this week than she had been last week. It didn't work, of course. He couldn't help but let the grief become bigger than everything else, remember that six months had passed since he'd last held his daughter, since he'd last been honestly happy. He hadn't told anyone about the anniversary, and no one else remembered. Jude was the only person he wanted to talk to about it, the only person he knew would understand, but he couldn't bring himself to call her, to be vulnerable with her again, not after everything. He didn't know if she would want to hear from him anyway. He'd given up the right to rely on her for any sort of emotional support when he'd decided forgiving her was impossible.

The last straw, the thing that had finally broken his resolve, had been the release of Benjamin's duet with Jude. He'd listened to it out of something that was probably masochism, but it had hurt so much more than he had expected. Surprisingly, the thing that hurt most had nothing to do with Benjamin, with hearing his voice and Jude's weave together. Instead, unexpectedly, it had been the lyrics. Whether the words had been written by Jude or Benjamin, Tommy didn't know and couldn't ask, but hearing Jude's voice sing the words _I'm giving up on you_ had been a blow he couldn't recover from. The Jude in the recording sang _You're the one that I love, and I'm saying goodbye,_ and he pictured her tear-streaked face the last time he'd seen her, her whispered _we hurt each other._

The words _say something_ cut like daggers, because if he rewound his memories further, he'd reach a point when he could have stopped it, could've saved them. Not everything about the way things ended had been his fault, not everything in his control. By the time the idea of him coming to Toronto had been presented, it had been far too late for either of them to stop the inevitable, and to leave on tour initially had been what he needed to do to process what she'd done and what she meant to him, to even start really trying to forgive her. But the moment when he held her phone in his hand, fury creeping up inside of him at the text messages from Benjamin, that was when he'd had the power to save their relationship.

Jude and Benjamin sang _say something_ , and he knew he could have held her phone out to her and said, "explain this," instead of shouting. He could have listened when she told the truth about the duet, how she hadn't had a choice, instead of letting himself see red and throw her phone across the room. _Say something,_ and he could've thought it through, remembered that he knew from experience how easy it could be to cheat, and that he had treated Jude unforgivably badly in the past and she had responded with fully undeserved grace and love and mercy. _Say something,_ and he could have said, "I forgive you. Let's move on." Instead, he had let the anger control him, pushed Jude away so harshly for so long that she had finally been forced to push back, to sever the few threads that still held their relationship together. _Say something, I'm giving up on you,_ and he was losing her all over again, this time with the full knowledge that it was his fault.

It had all been much too much, and he hadn't been able to think past the pounding in his head and the pain in his chest and the feeling of wanting to crawl out of his skin. He encountered again the gulf between what he wanted to do and what he knew he should do, but his baby girl was dead and Jude was three thousand miles away as the most important love he'd ever known lay in tatters, and what else mattered? What else did he have to keep him from drinking until the pain stopped? So he'd given in, drove with numb resolve to a liquor store and then drank and drank until the world went dark.

He'd woken to an alarm he hadn't expected to go off, sicker than he'd been in a very long time. The horror built in him as he remembered he was scheduled to work, a fact he'd entirely forgotten last night. His headache was the worst since the first few weeks after the accident, and standing upright, the dizziness and nausea were enough to knock him back down. He'd taken half a Vicodin, his second-to-last pill, to take the edge off the headache, and downed as much water and coffee as he could tolerate without throwing up, but the hangover was massive, especially combined with the residual brain injury symptoms, and so he had made a very big mistake by pulling out the bourbon again. His tolerance since the accident was different and less predictable than it had been, especially combined with the Vicodin. Hair of the dog, a balancing act at which he'd once been an expert, had backfired epically, and now he was drunk at work. Noticeably drunk.

He hoped to be able to head to the studio where he could sit down and finish his travel mug of coffee, both things he desperately hoped could help restore his ability to function and focus somewhat normally. But as he was thinking this, he ran straight into Zeppelin as she was walking across the lobby.

"Whoa!" she exclaimed, startled. She frowned as she looked up at Tommy. "Hey, are you okay? You look…"

"I'm fine," Tommy said quickly, but Zeppelin frowned and leaned forward towards him, inhaling. He stepped back from her quickly, but not quickly enough. He knew she could smell the alcohol on him when her eyes widened, then narrowed.

"Tom, are you actually–"

"I'm fine," he cut her off, firmly, and tried to walk around her in the direction of the studio.

"Whoa, hold up, we need to talk about this," she said, putting an arm out in front of him. "If you're–"

"Drop it, Zeppelin," he practically growled at her, and pushed her arm out of his path.

Jamie's voice came from behind Zeppelin as he walked up. "What's going on?" he asked, sounding concerned.

Zeppelin turned to her husband and said quietly, "I've got this, okay?"

"You need to come with me to my office, now." Zeppelin's voice was stern, but Tommy ignored her, turning away and starting to head down the hall.

"Hey!" Jamie protested. "Quincy!"

Zeppelin cut him off, softly saying, "Jamie, don't," before addressing Tommy again. "Stop right there." Her voice was commanding, surprisingly so, and Tommy slowed his steps in response, though he didn't stop. She tried again, speaking louder. "Sobriety is a condition of your contract, Tom. If I have to end that contract, I absolutely will." That made him stop and turn to her. She was standing with her arms crossed. They made eye contact, and she held his gaze, her stern expression not wavering even as he glared at her. "My office," she said again, somewhat more quietly. "Now."

Every defiant, proud bone in his body wanted to object, but something about seeing the normally timid Zeppelin hold her ground made him stop. "Fine," he said curtly, brushing past Jamie, who was staring with awed admiration at his wife.

Tommy sat down in the office Zeppelin and Jamie shared, and shame quickly replaced the defiant anger. Zeppelin entered after a moment, and closed the door behind her. He didn't look at her. "So," she said quietly as she walked up. She sat in the chair on the other side of her desk. "You're drunk at work? Tell me I'm wrong."

He glanced up at her, then away, at the wedding photo of Jamie and Zeppelin on the wall. "Are you going to fire me?" he asked, his tone more sarcastic than it probably should've been if he were genuinely trying to smooth things over.

"Should I?"

"Probably," he mumbled. Jamie and Zeppelin looked so happy, in the photo. They were looking at each other like there was no one else in the world, their smiles both radiant. He and Jude had been that happy, once.

"What's going on, Tommy?" Zeppelin's voice was gentle. He just looked down at his hands in his lap and shrugged. She sighed, and her tone was harsher when she spoke again. "You're obviously really talented, and we're happy to have you, but we gave you this contract as a favor, and you are far from irreplaceable here." He didn't say anything, and Zeppelin came around to the front of the desk, leaning against it and looking at him. "We hired you because you're family, you know? You and Jude. To Kwest, to Jamie, to me. I mean that. We all genuinely care about you, alright? We just want you to be okay." Tommy squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment, but still didn't say anything. Her voice was soft as she asked again, "Come on, Tommy, you can talk to me. What's going on?"

"On Saturday it will have been six months," he said finally, looking back up at Zeppelin. His voice was soft, his face expressionless.

She looked confused for a second, then it clicked and sorrow filled her expression. "Oh, God. I'm so sorry."

"It's nothing." He looked away, his gaze falling on another photo on Zeppelin's desk, this one of Jamie holding a newborn Michael, and he remembered holding Caroline in the hospital as a newborn, then her body four months later, so tiny and limp and horribly still. His stomach turned and he looked away from the picture, back down at his hands. "It doesn't matter, it's just another day."

"Of _course_ it matters," Zeppelin said. "You know you could've asked for time off, we would've let you."

He looked back up at her and said, harshly, "I can handle it." Zeppelin raised her eyebrows. Tommy clenched his jaw, then sighed and looked down, muttering, "I thought I could handle it."

"You're not alone, you know?" she said after a minute. "I can see how it maybe feels like you are, the way things happened between you and Jude, being back in Toronto… And I know you and I were never close, and I know you and Jamie weren't exactly friends back in the day, but you have to at least know that Kwest is here for you. But we all are, Tom. Kwest, Jamie, me, Sadie, Speid… We want to help you. There's no reason you have to go through this all alone. I meant it when I said you're family."

Tommy had no response to that, so he just sat, looking down at his hands and chewing on the inside of his cheek. Her words blurred in his ears, his head full of fog, and he just wanted to sleep, or to rewind, or…

When Zeppelin finally spoke again, her voice was a little harder again. "Okay, here's this, then. You came back to Toronto to get your life back together. I understand that you have been through some impossible stuff, but you owe it to a lot of people not to do things like drinking yourself sick when you have to work. This isn't acceptable. I can understand how it might feel like–"

"Can you?" he snapped, looking back up at her. "Do you really think you can understand, Zeppelin?"

"That's not what I meant," she said patiently. "If something happened to Fee…" She shook her head. "I can't imagine. I don't want to imagine. And then on top of it to have Jamie… No, of course I don't understand. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm trying to say is that I can see how all of this might feel impossible. I'm sure it feels a lot easier to give up, and I can see why you would have trouble believing it's worth it to try. But here's the thing. You owe it to me and Jamie and Kwest, and you owe it to the memory of your daughter, but mostly you owe it to yourself, yeah?"

To his horror, Tommy felt himself getting choked up, tears starting to prick at the backs of his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut. "I am so tired, Zep," he said in a broken, exhausted voice.

"I know," Zeppelin said softly. There was a long pause before she said, "The thing is that you don't have to do it by yourself. I get that that's who you are, and you don't like to rely on people, and I'm not saying it has to be me, but Tom, this is hard stuff, okay?" Tommy sighed again, and Zeppelin said, "Can you look at me for a second?" He looked up and met her eyes, and she said, "I really think that you can figure out how to be happy again. I honestly believe you can get through this." He just shrugged and she said, "You should come over for dinner on Saturday. We can invite Kwest too, we can leave the baby with Nana… You shouldn't have to be alone. Because you're not, Tommy. You aren't alone."

He couldn't decide whether the invitation made him feel supported or just pitied, but he said, "I'll think about it, thanks."

"Okay."

"So… I take it I'm not fired, then?" Tommy asked.

Zeppelin smiled a little. "Not this time." She looked more serious as she said, "Seriously, though, sobriety at work _is_ a condition of your contract. You made a promise here, a commitment. You don't get to brush that off."

"I know," he sighed. "I forgot I had to work today and then the painkillers, and…" He shook his head. "I messed up, and I'm sorry."

"If it happens again…" she warned.

"You'll, uh, kick my ass, right?" Tommy joked.

Zeppelin laughed. "If that's what it takes." She stood up straight and gestured toward the door with her head. "Come on, I'll take you home. I'm heading home anyway. Technically I'm still on maternity leave."

He almost protested, but the wooziness became stronger as he stood up again, so he just followed Zeppelin out to her car.

When she pulled up to his building she said, "You okay?"

"Yeah," he answered quickly. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You don't have to come in this afternoon or tomorrow if you aren't up for it, we'll figure out the schedule with Speid. But tomorrow's a new day, okay? You just made a mistake today, but you're okay. You're gonna be okay. Take a shower, sleep it off… You're going to be fine."

He looked over and met her eyes. "Thank you."

She smiled. "Of course."

When he got out of the car, he turned back and said, "You know something, Zeppelin? You're gonna be a good mom. That kid won't get away with _shit_." Zeppelin laughed, and he smiled a little as he shut the car door. As she drove away, he took a deep breath, feeling just a little bit less alone, and a little bit more like things might be okay.


	50. Chapter 50

It was late afternoon and Jude was leaving for the day, jotting down lyrics in a notebook as she walked out of the studio. Tommy had been back in Toronto for a little over two weeks, and Jude was slowly starting to come to terms with it. She was writing songs for real again, and it was making her feel more like herself. She was looking down at the page, not watching where she was going, when she walked straight into someone turning the corner. The woman's phone was knocked out of her hands, and Jude dropped her notebook. "Oh my gosh!" Jude exclaimed, bending down to pick up the dropped items. "I'm so sorry. I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking."

"It's fine," the woman laughed, accepting her phone back from Jude.

As they stood, a man came up behind the woman and said, "Jude, hi!"

Jude looked up, and was surprised to find that she recognized him. "Alex? Wow, um… long time no see." He'd completely and pointedly ignored her the entirety of Megan's trial, and, though he'd been at Bermondsey a handful of times a while back, before Caroline was born, they hadn't done more than make fleeting eye contact across the room.

Alex smiled. "No kidding!" He casually put a hand on the woman's back.

The woman smiled at Alex and then held a hand out to Jude. "I'm Lucille Du Val. Lucy."

Jude shook it, looking confused. "Uh, Jude Harrison, hi. You… know Alex?"

Lucy laughed. "Quite well, I'd say."

"Sorry," Alex said. "Lucy is my girlfriend." He beamed as he said it.

"Oh!" Jude exclaimed, surprised again. "Wow, okay, nice to meet you."

"You too." Lucy smiled. "Alex has told me a bit about you, and of course I love your music."

"Yeah, thanks, that's nice of you to say." Jude looked back at Alex. "What are you doing here? I mean– I don't mean… I just haven't seen you around in, what, a year and a half?"

"Yeah, something like that. But I decided to show Lucy the studio. I kind of grew up here, you know, and I figured she could see it, meet Emily, maybe some of my other old friends. Is Tom around?"

"No." Jude's smile froze, but didn't drop. "He's actually living in Toronto right now."

Alex looked surprised. "Oh. Are you…"

"We're, uh, working on separate projects," Jude said, repeating one of the lines they'd fed to the media.

"I see," Alex said with a slight frown.

"So, Lucy," Jude said brightly, changing the subject to the first thing she could think of, "how long have you known Alex?"

"We met in… what, late February?" Lucy looked at Alex, who nodded. "We've been together six months next week."

 _Six months. So it was right after Caroline died,_ Jude realized, feeling a dull ache in her chest at remembering once again that the six month anniversary was in two days. "That's great. How did you meet?" Jude wasn't sure if she was genuinely curious, or if she just wanted something to distract her, to keep her from thinking about how nearly half a year had passed since she last held her baby girl.

Lucy smiled. "That's actually a good story. He went on a blind date with– oh." Her phone rang as she spoke and she cut off, digging it out of her purse. "Just a minute." She picked it up and hissed a curse as she read the name. She gave Jude and Alex both an apologetic look. "So sorry, it's work. I need to take this." She answered the phone and walked a little ways away from them.

"What does she do?" Jude asked.

Alex smiled. "Lucy's a journalist and a filmmaker. When I met her she'd just returned from Cairo. She'd been covering the revolutions. She made a really great documentary."

"Wow, that's…" Jude looked at Alex's girlfriend in surprise. She was a pretty small woman, even in heels she was a little shorter than Jude, and she was thin, with delicate features. She was dressed sharply in a pink blouse and black pencil skirt, her long, dark hair in a fishtail braid down the middle of her back. Jude could imagine her as a bank teller or a lawyer, maybe doing the 5 o'clock news, but holding a camera in the midst of shouting protestors and clouds of tear gas? "Intense," she finished.

Alex nodded. "Intense is a good word. Or terrifying." He smiled again. "But when she's passionate about something, she's fearless."

"Don't start that, Alex," Lucy scolded, having hung up the phone and walked back over to them. She turned to Jude. "He brags about this, but I was just in the right place at the right time. I saw a story that needed to be told, and I told it. I did what anyone would've done."

"My point is that's _not_ what anyone would've done, Luce. Most people would've gotten the hell out of there. Give yourself a little credit."

Jude saw from the way Lucy pursed her lips that this was an argument they'd had before. "Staying to film was the least I could do," she said firmly. "There are plenty of heroes in that story, and I am _not_ one of them. I'm not the fearless one. The citizens, the protestors, they're the ones who deserve recognition, not some English girl with a camera."

Alex said, "Modest, too," and Lucy made a noise of protest and smacked him in the chest with the back of her hand, which made him laugh.

She rolled her eyes and said, "Anyway, I've got to go. That was Tamara. Apparently there's a crisis."

Jude's eyes widened. "Like… a revolution or something?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that," Lucy laughed. "More like office politics. The only dictators around there are me and my producer, and I like to think I'm the benevolent kind." She checked her watch. "But I can't guarantee the editors won't revolt if I don't get there soon. We're up against a serious deadline. Alex, can I take your car?" She looked at him apologetically. "I don't think I have time to stop at home first."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his car keys. "Sure. I can take a taxi."

"I may not be back for a while," Lucy warned as she took the keys from him. "She sounded really upset."

"I can bring you dinner later, if you're still there."

She shook her head. "We'll order in. Thank you, though. And thanks for showing me this place. It's really great." She turned back to Jude and held out a hand, which Jude shook. "Sorry to run like this. It was great meeting you."

"I'll walk you to the car," Alex said to Lucy.

"No, you stay and catch up, love," Lucy said, gesturing to Jude with her head.

"You sure?"

"'Course. I'll see you at home." She reached up and they kissed. Jude looked away as Alex said, "I love you."

"I love you more," came Lucy's reply.

"I love you most."

Lucy giggled, but tried to stifle it, turning back to Jude, blushing. "We're fourteen, sorry."

"You're fine." Jude smiled a little. "It was nice meeting you."

"Definitely!" She smiled at Jude, then squeezed Alex's hand, saying, "See you at home," again before walking away with a little wave to Jude. She pulled out her phone as she got to the door, and a second later Alex's phone buzzed, and he pulled it out, grinning and quickly sending a reply.

"If that text said 'I love you more' I'm going to be sick," Jude joked.

Alex looked sheepish. "I know. We're the worst."

She laughed. "Tommy and I have never been that cheesy."

"As I recall, you're more the type to stare into each other's eyes until we're all drowning in your sexual tension." Jude's smile fell, and she looked down, running a hand through her hair. Alex frowned a little. "Separate projects?" he asked softly.

"Yeah, it's…" she wanted to say "fine," but sighed instead. "A lot has happened."

"No kidding. I've heard, at least about some of it. Are you okay?"

"Of course. I'm doing fine." She smiled, and it only felt a little forced. "What about you? Aside from apparently being fourteen."

He smiled too. "I'm good. Really good, actually. Listen, do you want to go get, I dunno, coffee? I assume you still drink gallons of the stuff?"

She gave a short laugh. "I haven't changed that much. But I don't know if–"

"If you're headed somewhere we could do it another time."

"Oh. No, I was just headed home, but Alex…"

"It isn't like that," he said quickly. "It isn't like anything. Lucy meant it when she said to stay and catch up. We've talked about it, about you. I knew coming here today we'd probably run into you."

"Literally?" Jude said with a little smile.

Alex smiled too. "That part was an accident. But anyway, I thought it would be you and me and Lucy, and probably Tom, but…"

Jude didn't really want to go back to her empty apartment, where she always felt the absence of Tommy and Caroline weighing on her these days, so she nodded. "Yeah, sure. Let's do it."

As they walked into the little place around the corner and sat at a table, Alex asked, "So really. Are you okay?"

"Leading with the heavy questions, are we?" she asked dryly.

"I just mean that I know you've been through a lot this year."

She sighed. "You could say that. I'm… I don't even know. Yes, I'm okay, but okay is relative, I guess? It's been really hard. It's hard all the time. But I make it work."

"And Tom is okay? I heard about the accident…"

She thought of Tommy laying still and pale and bruised in a hospital bed, of him screaming at her, of the horrible things she'd said to him in Cardiff… she took a deep breath, then nodded. "Yeah, he's okay. He's recovered really well."

"…in Toronto." Alex still looked concerned.

She frowned. "He's working at NBR. Look, Alex, I don't really want to talk about it, okay? He's fine. I'm fine."

"Okay." He nodded. "I didn't mean to pry. But I want you to know that I'm sorry. I thought about calling a thousand times. I thought about sending a card when I heard about your daughter… I didn't know whether it would hurt or help you to hear from me. But I'm so sorry you've had to go through all of this. I can't imagine. You're very strong, Jude."

 _Not as strong as you think._ she thought, thinking of the way she'd treated Tommy, of how she'd repeatedly failed to be there for him, of what she'd done with Benjamin. She shook her head. "I don't think there was much of anything that helped, but that doesn't mean it would have hurt. Thanks, though. It does mean a lot that you cared. Care. Now can we please change the subject?"

"Sure, of course. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. It's fine, I just prefer not to talk about it. Now what the hell happened to Maren?" She finally diverted attention from her own life by asking the question that had been on her mind since Alex introduced Lucy as his girlfriend.

He raised an eyebrow. "Leading with the heavy questions, are we?"

"You started it. But really, the last time I saw you, you and Maren were attached at the hip." _More like attached at the lips,_ she thought.

Alex sighed. "Well, if you're talking about during the trial, more of that than I care to admit was probably for your benefit. But yes, Maren and I were together for about six months. A few months in, I knew for sure I wasn't in love with her. I did love her, you know, and I still do, but just... not like that. But I was too afraid to say that to her. She's my best friend."

"And you didn't want to lose her."

"Well, yes, and I didn't want to hurt her again. Breaking your best friend's heart, and for the second time, no less…"

"It sucks," Jude finished. "Yeah, I know. Been there."

"Right, well, I was pretty sure she wasn't... the one, you know? But it wasn't like it was terrible being with her or anything, and I was so afraid of hurting her and ruining our friendship that I didn't say anything for months. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't necessarily good either, I guess. Finally one day I asked Maren where she thought our relationship was headed, and she admitted that she'd been feeling the same things I had, and we eventually decided that we'd just be friends. I think by then the romance had dwindled to the point where that's practically what we were anyway, but it was still a really difficult, weird transition. We'd be together and we'd kiss without thinking about it, and then we'd both start doubting what our feelings really were again... there's just really no good way to break up with someone without drastically dialing back the amount of time you spend with them, I think. It was a mess for about another month until she took a teaching job at her old school. When she wasn't living in London for the whole year it made it easier to put up and emphasize the lines between friendship and relationship. She's dating a colleague of hers, a maths teacher, and she seems happy. She's my friend, but nothing more. I think it still disappoints my mum, but we're much better off this way." He smiled.

"Alright. So… Lucy, then. Tell me about her."

Alex failed to keep a big grin from spreading across his face. "What would you like to know?"

"How did you meet? She said it was a good story."

"It is, actually, yeah. So there's a mate of mine from work called Raj who had just gotten engaged when Maren and I split, which wouldn't have been a problem except that Raj and Jen are the kind of couple who are so happy that they feel guilty when anyone around them is single, and they work very very hard to correct the perceived injustice." Jude laughed and Alex smiled. "So I guess when he felt that an appropriate mourning time had passed, he started pestering me to let them set me up. Finally I agreed to a blind date with someone who worked with Jen, who Raj had been insisting for weeks was my perfect woman."

Jude smiled. "Lucy?"

Alex's grin widened. "Diana." Jude looked incredulous and he laughed. "The woman they set me up with was named Diana. And it was the worst date I had ever been on. She was perfectly nice. Intelligent, attractive… and completely boring. Of course, she would say the same about me. It wasn't even that we had nothing in common as much as we were just too much alike. Either way, we just didn't click."

"I don't get it. What does this have to do with anything?"

"I'm getting to it!" Alex insisted with another laugh. "Always so impatient!"

"Sorry, sorry, go on."

"So I took her home, said goodnight, et cetera, with the sort of understanding that neither of us had any desire to go on a second date. But the next morning I found her scarf in my car, so I rang her, and she said she was going to be gone for the weekend, but that if I could just bring it to her place, her flatmate would be there to let me in."

Jude let out a little gasp. "And you went and Lucy answered the door?"

Alex grinned. "Yes she did. She invited me in, I stammered my way through the whole conversation, made an arse of myself, you know. She told me about her documentary, invited me to a showing, and I guess the rest is history."

"That's actually super adorable. I'm really happy for you, Alex."

"It's… good, you know? With Lucy. It's better. With Maren, it was always a little bit obligation, after a point, and with us…" he gestured between Jude and himself, "I don't know. I tried very hard all the time, because I think I knew it wasn't working, and I knew we weren't right, but I was so convinced you were everything I wanted… We ended up with a relationship where I was always feeling frustrated and scared that I was losing you, and you constantly felt guilty."

He was right, Jude realized. That had been a big thing that had characterized her relationship with Alex, even from the very beginning. Guilt.

Alex saw the sad look on her face. "Hey. It worked out, Jude. With Lucy, even when it's not easy, it's still... right." He brightened and joked, "And as a bonus, my parents hate her, so no feelings of obligation."

"Seriously? Her too?"

Alex nodded. "They've come around a bit, but, besides not being Maren, Lucy's... a little outspoken. She doesn't exactly agree with my parents' views, and she was not at all shy about letting them know that." He grimaced. "She called my father a fascist during Easter dinner." Jude snorted, and Alex shook his head. "It was not the most pleasant holiday I've had. And she's also French, raised in London but born in Marseille, so that doesn't help."

"You can't just settle down with a nice English girl, can you Alex?" Jude joked.

"Unfortunately it would appear I cannot." He smiled. "So my family is stuck with her."

"You live together?" Jude remembered Lucy saying "I'll see you at home".

He nodded. "She moved in a few weeks ago."

"I'm really happy for you," she said again.

"Thank you. I'm very happy."

"And apparently fourteen years old," she teased.

"What can I say?" he shrugged and grinned.

Jude rolled her eyes. "Gross."

"So where are you living these days?"

"Uh… same place."

"Same place?" Alex looked surprised. "As when I lived there?"

Jude nodded. "We were talking about getting a house, before…" she shook her head. "But yeah, same place."

He looked sad. "I'm so sorry."

"Why? It's a nice apartment," she joked feebly.

"No, I meant about–" he realized she knew what he meant. "Ah, right. No, I was just surprised. I thought the whole stalker thing would have been enough to get you to move out, even if us splitting up wasn't."

"Yeah, we meant to. I guess things just got kind of crazy, and it never happened."

"So is my blood stain still on the floor, then?" Alex joked.

Jude made a face. "Don't be gross. We replaced the carpet."

He smiled. "So what about your family? How's Sadie these days?"

They talked for another hour or so before the conversation petered out and they both went home. It was nice, to catch up. It was good to talk to someone who, not only knew her before Caroline died, but hadn't even known her as a mother. And under the drama of their relationship, she had always genuinely liked Alex as a person. With his romantic feelings for her well and truly gone, Jude really liked talking to him. The whole time, though, she kept thinking about his look of surprise when she told him she hadn't ever moved out of the apartment where so much had happened to her.

.

The idea nagged at her for the next couple of days. On the six month anniversary of Caroline's death, she called Tommy for the first time since the first week he'd been back in Toronto. His voice was soft and sad when he answered. "Hey. I wondered if you'd call today."

"Yeah," she sighed. "Are you okay?"

"I'm… Have you talked to Jamie at all?"

"Uh… yeah, a little. But he doesn't really talk about you. Why, is there something I should know?"

"I guess he doesn't talk about you either. And no, no, I just wondered." He decided not to tell her about the other day, if she didn't already know. He answered her question instead. "I'm fine, I guess? What is okay? I don't know if I know anymore."

"I get that."

"And you? Are you okay?"

"I guess same as you." She sighed again and sat down on the couch, pulling her knees up to her chest. "Okay is relative."

They were quiet for a minute until he said, "So, six months."

"Six months," she repeated. There was an ache in her throat that she knew meant tears weren't too far behind. "How could things have changed so much in just six months?"

"I know." His chest ached, and the now-familiar need flared in him to turn back the clock, to go back to a time when they were happy. He sighed. "I'm so sorry, Jude."

"I'm sorry too." They were silent again until she said, "That's, uh, actually not why I called, though."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, um… I think I'm going to move."

There was a beat of silence. "Uh. Wow, okay. Move where?" _Does she mean to Toronto?_ he wondered.

"Oh, not like, _move_ move. I'm staying in London, just moving to a different apartment. I asked Nicola to help me find a place." She paused, unsure of how honest to be, but finally she admitted, "When I'm here, I just… I feel Caroline, and you, and the fact that neither of you are here anymore. All the time, like some kind of phantom limb. I can't sleep in our empty bed anymore." She practically whispered the last part, then cleared her throat. "But even if that weren't true, there are a lot of reasons. For one thing, Alex and I were almost killed in the hallway."

Tommy sighed. "You have a point. I guess we probably should have moved a long time ago. So you're, what? Letting the lease expire?"

"Eventually. But that's why I called you. It's your place too. You still have stuff here that I didn't send you, and I… I don't think I can go through Caroline's stuff on my own. It's hard enough to even go in the nursery, you know? Packing things up… I'm not ready to do that. Not by myself. But I need to get out of here."

"Okay. So you're asking me to come to London and help you move?"

"I guess, yeah. At some point. I mean, I can afford rent on two places, so if you can't come right away…"

"I probably can't. I'm on kind of a tight schedule here. This album is set to be finished in early November. I could come then and I'd be able to stay for a while."

"November?"

"Yeah, sorry," Tommy apologized. "I know that's a long time. I could talk to Jamie and Zeppelin about it."

"No, it's fine, I was just thinking. Caroline's birthday."

"Oh. Yeah."

"Maybe it would be good to be together on her birthday anyway. We could start to go through the stuff in the apartment and we could visit the cemetery or something. Even though we're not together, we're still…"

"We're still her parents. Yeah. That sounds like a good idea." There was another long moment of silence before Tommy said, "I guess no matter what else happens, there's always going to be her connecting us."

It was the closest he could come to telling Jude he would never stop loving her.

* * *

 **A/N:** I seriously considered cutting this scene with Alex, along with the early chapter he was in, since it's really a diversion from the rest of the plot. I probably should've cut it, but I didn't because I am weak (by far my biggest editing weakness is that I'm _terrible_ at cutting things, even if they're unnecessary to the story.) I also decided that I wanted to be able to wrap up Alex's storyline to some extent. Even if this story hasn't been about him, the first two definitely were. I always liked Alex as a character. He deserves to be happy. Also, (#funfacts) a significant portion of this conversation between Jude and Alex is lifted almost directly from my unfinished epilogue for Lost and Found. Even the few bits of fanfic I write and don't publish usually end up getting taken apart and reused at some point.


	51. Chapter 51

November and the week of Caroline's birthday came more quickly than Jude had expected. It was late evening, and she was sitting on the couch with her guitar and her notebook when there was a knock on her door. It had to be Tommy, she knew, since she'd told her doorman and security to expect him and let him up. Her heart clenched and sped up, and she chastised herself for getting excited. He was just coming by for the key to the old apartment where he was going to stay for the next few days until they finished going through all of their stuff, and then he was back to Toronto. This reunion was temporary at best. Their relationship was done for good.

Her bare feet slapped on the hardwood floor, and she was briefly reminded of her birthday two years and a lifetime ago, when he showed up at her door and turned her life upside down. Her insides squeezed again when she opened the door and saw him standing there. She took in the familiar leather jacket, the stubble on his cheeks, that slow smile he saved for her, and everything in her ached for a second. "Hey," she said softly. She smiled, trying to convey nothing beyond that she was happy to see him, and hoped it didn't look tense or sad.

Tommy's heart, too, had turned over at the sight of Jude. She looked older than he remembered, somehow, more world-weary, and he knew some of that was probably his doing. But her eyes were still her eyes, and her smile still felt like home. If only they hadn't messed everything up so badly, if only Caroline were still here, if they could just get back to what they had a year ago… But there was no use in that line of thinking, so he just smiled at her and said, "Hey yourself."

Jude wanted to throw her arms around his neck, to hold him, to cry, to hear him say he loved her, to kiss him deeply and wrap herself around him. The desire bubbled up her, strong and hot for a moment, and she felt herself flush, looking down and stepping back into the apartment. Now was so not the time for any of those feelings, so she looked away and said, "Uh, come in. I'll grab the key." She went to the kitchen, to the drawer where she kept the old keys, and Tommy followed, closing the front door behind him. "Do you want anything?" she asked.

He smiled wryly at her retreating back, muttering, "Well that's a loaded question."

"What?" she asked, turning back to him.

He shook his head. "Nothing. I'm good."

She handed him the keys, ignoring the electricity when their fingers touched. "I haven't been there in a while, but there should still be some towels and sheets and stuff in the hall closet, and I think I pretty much left all your stuff I didn't send you."

"Thanks." Tommy put the keys in his jacket pocket, and they stood there in awkward silence for a moment. "Jude," Tommy said after a moment. Their eyes met again, and he sighed. "Look, I know the way we left things wasn't…" He looked frustrated, unable to find the words, and tried again. "I know the way I acted, the way I treated you, it was unforgivable. And I know we aren't together anymore, and that we're not getting back together. I don't expect that, but I just want you to know that I'm sorry."

"It's fine, Tommy. I understand," she insisted. "You had a freaking brain injury, you were sick, and I messed up… I don't blame you for not trusting me, and I don't blame you for the way it ended. It wasn't your fault, so there's nothing to forgive. With some of the things I said…" she sighed, shaking her head sadly. "I did I lot that I regret, things I wish I could take back. We both know that I did unforgivable things too. More than just the…" she winced a little, "you know. I mean, that's obviously unforgivable by itself, but it went beyond that." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "From the time Caroline died, I started pushing you away. Even with everything you were going through, everything I knew you were struggling with, I just… I couldn't figure out how to be there for you, I wasn't supportive, I wasn't… I treated you really badly, too. And I'm so sorry."

Tommy's expression was tender and sad. "I get it. I've had a lot of time to think it over, and I understand why you did what you did. This year has been…" He looked away with a sigh. "Impossible. We both made mistakes, or, I don't know, maybe we both did the best we could under the circumstances, and it just wasn't enough. Anyway, it's in the past." He looked back at her and said sincerely, "But I want you to know that I forgive you, Jude. For all of it. I mean that."

"Thank you." Jude's eyes widened a little as she realized that he hadn't said that before. He'd said he understood, that he wanted to move past it, that he loved her, but the words "I forgive you" had been the ones she'd been waiting for, and the ones which had not come.

But too much had happened, and they'd still hurt each other too much. It hadn't been solely her infidelity and his unwillingness to forgive it that had split them up. She'd admitted to herself that she would always love him, but she'd also admitted that love on its own wasn't enough to mean they were right together anymore.

"Jude…" he said her name again, hesitating. He just wanted to hold her again, at least once. He held out his arms a little and started to ask "can I…"

She smiled and stepped forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly. She buried her face in his neck after a moment, and he pressed his lips to her hair, the gestures too intimate for friends, exes, whatever they were supposed to be to each other now, but it still felt so natural. They still fit together like they always had. She reluctantly pulled away after it had been too long, and leaned against the counter again. "Do you, uh, want to stay for a bit? Catch up?" She quickly corrected herself. "I'm sorry, you just got off a long flight, you probably just want to go and crash. Sorry."

Tommy shook his head. "No, it's fine. I'd love to. Your new place is nice, by the way."

"Yeah, I like it." She smiled. "It's smaller, and this is an older building, but I like that too, actually. Some of the woodwork is really cool. Let me show you." She walked to the living room, and he followed.

"Beautiful," he said softly. Jude ignored the fact that he was looking at her when he said it.

"It's, uh… I haven't been here long, but I think it's starting to feel like home. It's been a long time since I've really lived on my own, but I'm adjusting." They sat down on opposite ends of the couch, Jude's guitar in between them. "And I really did need a change. Too many memories in that place, you know? It's been good being somewhere new."

"I'm glad." Tommy smiled. "I mean it, I'm really happy you're doing well."

"How are you?" Jude asked, turning to face him, pulling her knees up to her chest.

"I'm…" he sighed, "better."

"Yeah?" she asked gently, wanting to know more but not wanting to push.

He shifted uncomfortably, looking down. "Things were… not so great, for a while, but then I, uh, I did, you know, some therapy and stuff, I'm on a medication that's been helping with some of the anger and that stuff, I got back into AA… Now I'm off the painkillers, I'm sober again, a little over two months… And the other stuff, the brain injury stuff. The hand, the headaches, the mood swings, the anger, all of that. It's better." He looked back up at her. "I guess… I don't know. Recovery is a process, or whatever, but I'm good."

"I'm really glad," she said, leaning forward to briefly squeeze his arm. The corner of her mouth quirked up into a little smile as she sat back. "Would it sound condescending if I said I was proud of you?"

He smirked. "Maybe a little bit, but I'm so used to you being condescending, I don't think I'd notice."

Jude laughed, shaking her head. "Well, I am proud of you. Seriously."

"I think a big part of it's really thanks to Kwest and Zeppelin and everyone in Toronto. At NBR especially. They're good people. Good friends."

Jude nodded. "I wish I got to see them more. The baby, too. I'm jealous you got to see him."

"Yeah, I guess there were perks to being back in Toronto."

"Aren't… are you going back? I know they never gave you a long-term contract or anything, but I kind of assumed…"

Tommy hesitated. "I'm actually thinking of staying in London." Jude looked surprised, and he continued, looking almost embarrassed. "I, uh, have a meeting tomorrow with Nora."

Jude's eyes widened further. "Really? You're coming back to Bermondsey?"

He nodded. "If she'll have me. Which is a big if."

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked incredulously.

"Because I didn't want you to think…" He sighed. "I want you to understand that I respect the fact that we're not together anymore. I'm not coming back to London to try and win you back or something."

"But why move back to London at all?" He frowned, and she clarified, "I'm not upset about it, I'm glad. Just… what's in London?" _What's in London aside from me?_

"I've lived here for two years, Jude. It's my home." Tommy still sounded offended. "I have friends in Toronto, but I do here, too. NBR is great, but they don't have a place for me, not really. You can't have the best and worst times of your life somewhere and not feel attached to it. Why? Do _you_ want to go back to Toronto? Does London not feel like home to you?"

"No, it does, I just–"

"You think of me as having followed you here." His frown deepened. "And you're right, I did. Two years ago, I showed up at your door, and you were the only thing holding me here. If you and I hadn't gotten back together then, I wouldn't have stayed. _We_ built a life _together_ , here, and it's true, after that fell apart, I left, but that doesn't mean that I can't have a life here without you. My daughter is buried here, Jude, I've worked at Bermondsey for two years, you're not the only thing in my life."

"Okay!" she protested. "Okay, okay, I get it, Tommy. I'm sorry. I was just surprised. Look, I'm glad you're staying. I'll even put in a good word for you with Nora."

"You don't need to do that."

"I want to," Jude insisted. "If you want to come back, I want you to come back. I'll insist if I have to."

"Jude," Tommy said in a warning tone, "I don't need you to fight my battles for me. _I_ am the one that messed up, and _I_ am the one that needs to fix it."

"Right, okay, fine. Sorry." She sighed and they were silent for a moment before Jude spoke again. "So if you're back at Bermondsey–"

"Big if," he reminded her.

"Right, I know, but if you do come back… Would we be working together?"

He rubbed a hand across his jaw, then shrugged. "I guess it depends on where Nora puts me? I don't know. Do you… do you want to?"

What she said was, "Music was never our problem," but she knew deep down that they'd tried and failed a thousand times at being platonic friends and coworkers. To work so closely when they'd shared so much? It was a bad idea. But there would always be a big part of her that wanted him however she could get him. And if that was as co-producer, she knew she wouldn't be able to turn it down.

"Who knows," Tommy said sardonically, "maybe I'll be demoted, end up as your engineer."

She laughed. "Being your boss? Yeah, I could go for that."

He groaned and rolled his eyes. "I'm sure." She laughed again, and the sound tugged at something inside of him. He found himself thinking again of kissing her, and looked away before his gaze could linger too long. There was another moment of silence, the tension creeping back. Her guitar was sitting on the couch between them, and his eyes fell on her notebook, open on top of the instrument. "You said you've been writing again?" he asked, looking back up at her.

"Yeah." She smiled. "For a while. I'm talking to Nora about getting another album started."

"That's really great, girl." The last word slipped out without Tommy meaning it to. Her smile widened a little. He tilted his head to the side slightly and asked, "What changed? To make you able to start writing again, I mean."

She thought for a moment. "I think… Before, I was trying to write about it, you know? About Caroline, or about the loss, or the grief… Every time I sat down to write, I was at least partly trying to find some way to process that. I've worked through hard stuff before by writing about it, but this is different. I wanted something that would make it make sense, but I don't think there's any song that could do that."

"No words," he said softly.

"Yeah," she sighed. "But I think eventually I stopped trying to write about her, and I sort of went back to my songwriting home base, I guess?"

He looked confused. "Which is…"

"What else?" She smiled a little sadly. "You."

He raised his eyebrows slightly. "Ah."

"Yeah." She shrugged. "I wrote Heaven Forbid when you first went back on tour, which I sent you, but it took me a little while to start really writing again regularly, and then a while longer before I wrote about things that weren't, well, you."

Tommy smiled. "But now you do?"

"Now I do. And I think along the way, I've kind of written about Caroline, too. What about you? Have you been writing?"

"A little." He shrugged. "Not much. But I've gone years without really writing before. I never wrote as much as you did."

She grinned and pointed at herself. "Prolific."

"Very," he said with a smile. He gestured to her notebook. "You were working on something when I got here?" Jude nodded and he asked, "Can I hear it?"

"Oh. It's… it's not really finished." She hesitated, embarrassed.

He raised his eyebrows. "This is me you're talking to, Harrison. I've heard a lot of your unfinished stuff." He shrugged and added, "Only if you want to show me. No pressure. You could play something else." His voice got soft again. "I just miss hearing you sing."

"Tommy, we shouldn't…" She trailed off, looking down at her hands, not knowing what exactly she was trying to say, just feeling somehow that they were nearing a line they shouldn't cross.

"What happened to 'music was never our problem'?" he asked. When she just sighed, he nodded and said, "Okay, I get it. I should probably go anyway. It was really good to see you again, Jude." He reached over to put a hand on her knee briefly before standing up.

Her heart sank at the idea of him leaving, and she groaned internally, linking her hands behind her head for a moment and thinking _Dammit, Jude_. "Dance me to the end of love," she said as he turned away. He turned back and raised his eyebrows. She laughed at his expression. "The song. Leonard Cohen. Do you know it?"

Tommy thought for a moment, sitting back on the couch. "Maybe? I can't remember it, though."

 _"Dance me to your beauty like a burning violin"_ Jude sang the first line.

"Oh." Tommy nodded. " _Dance me through the panic, 'til I'm gathered safely in._ Sure, yeah, of course. Good song. Passionate."

She nodded. "I hadn't heard it in forever, and then it came up on shuffle the other day, and I've kind of been listening to it non-stop. This," she reached out to pick up her notebook, "is sort of inspired by it. Not sure it's my usual genre, really, so I don't think I could ever release it, and it's definitely not finished. I think it's missing something."

Tommy smiled. "I'll see if I can help." He grabbed her guitar and handed it to her, moving so he was sitting next to her, close enough to read over her shoulder.

She tried not to let the closeness distract her, and sang.

 _Are you really here, or am I dreaming?  
I can't tell dreams from truth  
For it's been so long since I have seen you,  
I can hardly remember your face anymore_

Her voice and her words gave him chills. He turned to watch her.

 _When I get really lonely,  
and the distance causes only silence  
I think of you smiling  
with pride in your eyes, a lover that sighs_

She closed her eyes briefly and smiled as she sang, and he thought, before he could stop himself, that he'd never seen anything more beautiful.

 _If you want me, satisfy me  
If you want me, satisfy me_

She stopped singing as she strummed her final chord. "That would, uh, probably repeat a few more times, I'm thinking? As the hook. The second verse is half finished."

He didn't ask what he wanted to, which was, _is it about me?_ and instead rubbed a hand along his jaw, thinking. "It's good," he said after a moment. "It's really good. I like the… vibe. You know? The feel of it. You've still got it, girl."

She smiled. "Thanks. That means a lot."

"As far as what it's missing… Have you thought about doing it as a duet?"

"You trying to take over my song, Quincy?" Jude joked.

"Just sing, Harrison." Tommy rolled his eyes. "Let me take the lower harmony on the hook. Minor sixth down. The sound will be fuller, yeah? Not so open and empty."

She nodded slowly, thinking, then nodded again. "Okay. From the verse?" she asked.

"Just the second half."

She sang it again, and when his voice came in on, _if you want me, satisfy me,_ they locked eyes. The electricity between them was intense enough that Jude messed up on the guitar. He barely noticed. She cleared her throat and looked down. "Yeah, that was it. I guess it just needed…" she shook her head before looking back up at him and saying, "you."

"Glad I could help." He reached out to brush a lock of hair from her face, and her lips parted slightly at the contact. He put a hand on her cheek and softly said, "I miss you, Jude." He leaned in.

"Tommy, we shouldn't…" she breathed, but didn't pull back.

"I know," he said, before kissing her anyway.

Whatever willpower she had evaporated as their lips touched, and she deepened the kiss, because God, she'd missed this. She moved her guitar off her lap without breaking the kiss, and climbed on top of him so she was straddling him on the couch. It wasn't until his hands went to the button of her jeans that she pulled back, breathlessly saying, "Wait, wait, hold on." He moved his hands so they were resting on her thighs and looked at her expectantly. She said, "What do you… what are we doing?"

He smirked. "You want a dictionary definition?"

"You know what I mean."

"We're two adults who have a history, neither of us have gotten any in months, and we're… relieving tension?" He knew what he was saying was bullshit, but he said it anyway. He wanted her, all of her, but he didn't know how to even begin to talk about resuming their relationship after everything.

She raised her eyebrows. "We're really going to pretend it's not more complicated than that?" He gave her a smirk and a little shrug that said "I will if you will." She hesitated, then sighed, resting her forehead against his. "We shouldn't."

"Do you want to?"

"That's not really the point, is it?"

He tilted his face so their lips were close again, but he didn't kiss her, whispering, "Isn't it?"

She pulled back, shaking her head and kissing him on the forehead before getting off of him and standing up.

He groaned softly, then sighed. "Fair enough." He stood up from the couch. "I'll see you in a couple days, then."

Everything in her protested to his absence, and as he left the room, she said, "Tommy, wait." He turned around, raising his eyebrows at her. She muttered, "Dammit," to herself and then said, "I do. Want to."

He took a few slow steps back into the room, eyebrows still raised. "…but you don't think we should."

"There are so many reasons that it's a terrible idea for us to hook up right now."

He sighed again. "Yeah, I know. I get it."

She shook her head. "But I don't care."

Tommy laughed, disbelieving. "You're killing me, Harrison." But when she closed the distance between them and pulled his face to hers, he kissed her back without hesitation.

.

It was cold in Jude's apartment. Not so cold that she'd been planning to turn on the heat for sitting on the couch with her guitar, but too cold to be taking her clothes off in her living room. So when Tommy removed her shirt and the cool air hit her skin, she led him to her bedroom. She'd known instantly that it was a bad decision. Even as they crashed down together on her bed, even as his hands were _finally_ on her again and she knew she could not bring herself to regret this, she also realized that she would never again be able to sleep in this bed, in this place that was finally supposed to be hers and only hers, without thinking of this, of Tommy.

For a while afterwards, neither of them spoke. Tommy lay beside her, their arms just barely touching, listening to the sound of their breathing in the quiet of the bedroom. Jude chuckled after a minute, and Tommy looked over at her, meeting her eyes and smiling. "What?" he asked.

"Nothing. That was…" she paused, searching for a word, and he smirked, expecting "amazing" or "incredible," but a look of sadness crossed her face and she finished, saying, "a mistake."

He frowned. "Ouch."

Her expression softened and she moved so she could kiss him gently, stroking the side of his face with her thumb. "Best mistake I've made in a long time."

He smiled again. "Back at you."

Jude lay down again, turning her back to him, but pressing up against his side. Tommy put an arm over her, kissing her shoulder and pulling the blanket up over them. This was the other reason that having sex in her bed was a bad idea—the temptation to curl up with him and fall asleep was going to be too great. For Tommy to spend the night was crossing yet another line they should have avoided, but she was warm and sleepy and she'd been craving the feeling of his arms around her for months now.

After a while he said, "I should probably go, huh?" though he didn't make a move to get up.

"Yeah," she agreed, pulling his arm tighter around her waist as she said it.

"Do you want me to?"

She sighed. "No." She turned around in his embrace to look at him, putting a hand on his cheek. "It's complicated."

"Yeah." He brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. "But we've always been complicated."

Jude laid her head on Tommy's chest and murmured, "You can stay if you want to."

"It's one night, okay? It means whatever we want it to mean. Even if that's nothing."

She sighed again. "Can we just not think about it for right now?"

"Yeah," he agreed. "But Jude?"

"Hmm?"

"I missed you."

She held him tighter and murmured, "I'm right here."

.

When Jude woke up, Tommy was gone. For a moment she actually wondered if it had been a dream, but quickly realized it wasn't. For one thing, she wasn't wearing her pajamas, but for another, her bed still smelled like him. She turned and pressed her face against the pillow he'd used and lay there for a minute, breathing him in. Even after she washed the sheets, she knew she'd imagine his scent still lingered on them. She'd feel the ghost of his arms around her every time she laid down to go to sleep (as if she hadn't before.) The thought should probably have bothered her more than it did, but for now all she could bring herself to feel was happy that he was back in London, and that he was planning on staying. The more time passed since he left for Toronto, the more the memories of their struggles had faded, replaced by missing him, missing the good times. What she felt being with him last night had been a little bit fear, but mostly joy and relief. Was it the wise decision, to spend more time with him, to have him back in her life? Maybe not, but she couldn't deny that a big part of her wanted it desperately.

When she got up, she noticed there was something written on the notepad she kept on her bedside table. She recognized Tommy's handwriting.

 _Jude,  
Jetlag = waking up at 4 AM. You looked peaceful, so I didn't want to wake you.  
I know none of this is simple, but I want you to know that I don't regret it for a minute.  
See you tomorrow,  
Tom_

* * *

 **A/N:** "If You Want Me" is from the movie/musical _Once,_ music and lyrics by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová.


	52. Chapter 52

**A/N:** Sool47: but is the hesitation really so surprising? When a relationship repeatedly goes as bad as Jude and Tommy have gone, wouldn't you actually expect _more_ hesitation, forgiveness and apologies aside? Maybe it was what she wanted months ago, maybe it would've been enough then, but deciding whether to get back together with an ex isn't as simple as one conversation, especially when your relationship ended in such a spectacularly painful way.

* * *

The next day, Caroline's birthday, Jude and Tommy met for breakfast. Jude had had a knot in her stomach all morning, but it loosened a little at the sight of him, and a little more as he gave her a hug. He kissed her cheek before pulling back and sitting across from her at the table. They sat in silence for a beat before he asked softly, "You okay?"

"Yeah." She shrugged. "It's just going to be a hard day, I guess."

He sighed and reached across the table to grab her hand, squeezing it. "I know."

She smiled a little and squeezed back. "But it would be harder if you weren't here."

He nodded. "For me too." He looked for a moment like he wanted to say something else, but he didn't, just let go of her hand.

Jude changed the subject. "Your meeting with Nora yesterday, how did it go?"

Tommy shrugged, and when she raised her eyebrows at him expectantly, he elaborated. "Really, I don't know." He shook his head. "You know she's hard to read sometimes. She said she was 'reluctant,'" he made quotes in the air with his fingers, "after the way things went down. I told her about the brain injury stuff, that I'm doing better… She said she'd 'consider it.'" He sighed. "I don't know."

"She'd be crazy not to take you back."

Tommy's eyebrows furrowed. "Part of me thinks she'd be crazy _to_ take me back."

Jude frowned. "Doesn't everyone deserve a second chance?" They looked at each other for a long moment, both picking up on the hint of a double meaning in their words.

Tommy tilted his head slightly, searching her face before shrugging again and looking away. "She said she'll let me know by the end of the week. I guess there's no use worrying about it until she does."

"I know you said you didn't want me to, but I can talk to–"

"Jude," Tommy cut her off with a shake of his head.

She sighed. "Right, okay, I get it. Fighting your own battles. But I want you to be happy, Tommy." He smiled a little, and she continued, "And I…" she hesitated briefly before mumbling, "I also really want you to stay."

Tommy raised his eyebrows, surprised, but a waiter came up to the table before he had a chance to respond. Once he left, they didn't bring it up again, instead making small talk about other things as they ate.

They both grew silent as they finished their breakfast and got in Jude's car to drive to the cemetery. When they were almost there, Tommy quietly said, more to himself than to her, "We haven't been together, have we?"

"What?" Jude asked.

"Nothing, sorry. I just realized, we've never gone together to her grave. Not since the funeral."

"Yeah, I guess that's true." Jude sounded a little surprised. "I guess at first it would have just been too hard, and then…"

"Yeah." Tommy sighed. "Have you been, though?"

Jude nodded. "I first went the week it'd been six months. Em and Max came with me. I've also been by myself a couple of times, just sort of sat and played my guitar for a while. Have you been?"

"Yeah. When you were in Toronto. That's, uh, actually where I was when you sent me that picture of you and the baby."

Jude winced. "Sorry."

Tommy just shrugged, not wanting to admit that receiving the picture had totally gutted him, that he'd gone back to his car and cried, sobbed until his head was pounding and every one of his nerves felt raw.

The day was unusually sunny for London. The day of the funeral had been sunny too, bright and beautiful and unseasonably warm for the middle of March. Tommy remembered resenting it. He didn't know exactly what it was that he'd expected, but it seemed wrong, somehow, that the weather could be so nice when his entire life felt like it was falling apart. He had the same thought as they drove up to the cemetery now, but as they stepped out of the car, Jude tilted her face to the sun for a moment, closing her eyes, a small smile on her lips. Warmth spread through his chest for a second as he watched her. In spite of where they were, in spite of the grief, the sight of her little smile made him feel lighter. As they walked, he reached out to take her hand. She looked a little surprised for a second, but didn't pull away, lacing her fingers through his instead.

Her grip tightened on his hand as they got to Caroline's grave, and he squeezed her fingers before letting go to place the bouquet of flowers in front of the headstone. "Happy birthday, baby girl," he said quietly, touching her name on the stone. When he straightened up, Jude leaned her head against his shoulder, and he put an arm around her. They stayed there for a while, neither of them saying anything.

Eventually, Jude quietly said, "Only a year."

Tommy looked at her and gently brushed some of the tears from her cheek. "Feels like longer."

"Yeah," she sighed, looking back at the headstone. Her voice was barely a whisper as she said, "We had a baby a year ago."

He took a shaky breath and gave a choked, "Yeah."

She looked back at him, pulling away a little. "Do you want a minute alone?"

He shook his head. "No. You?"

"No." She wrapped both arms around him, burying her face in his chest. He held her tightly and kissed her hair. They stood like that for a long time, holding each other up. Whatever else had happened, whatever else there was keeping them apart, they were still bonded by this, by being the only two people who'd shared this love for Caroline, still partners in their grief.

.

Something tightened in Jude's chest as Tommy unlocked the door to the old apartment, making her feel like she couldn't breathe. He noticed her hesitation and said, "We don't have to do this today. I know it's a lot all at once. We can go through the stuff another time."

Jude shook her head. "No. I want to do it today, at least get started."

He nodded. "Okay, girl."

Jude let out a hum as she walked into the now sparsely furnished apartment. "Wow. I haven't been back here in… I don't even know. A couple months, probably. It's strange."

"Yeah, tell me about it," he sighed. "Coming back here the other day was really weird. Weirder because you took my couch."

"My couch!" Jude laughed.

"Pretty sure I am the one who picked out that couch." He crossed his arms, but he was smiling.

She mimicked his stance, raising an eyebrow. "Okay, well-docu–"

He cut her off with a groan. "If you say 'well-documented breakup rule', Harrison, I swear to God…"

"It's the Bowie all over again," she laughed, remembering the time they'd argued over who got to keep the David Bowie gold record they'd bought together, gambling it in Darius's charity poker tournament.

"Play me for the couch and I won't let you win this time," he threatened as they walked to the nursery.

"It probably says something about us that we've gone from arguing over rock and roll memorabilia to… furniture," Jude joked. "We used to be so much cooler."

"Oh God, you're right." He shook his head in mock horror. "What have you done to me?"

Jude was laughing as they reached Caroline's room, but it faded quickly as she opened the door. Tommy put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it gently, and she put her hand over his for a moment before pulling away and stepping into the room. Jude held it together surprisingly well as they dismantled the crib, making conversation about her album plans. Going through the clothes was harder. It reminded her of numbly looking through the drawers to choose something for Caroline to be buried in. She tried not to picture her daughter when she looked at the clothes, to concentrate on the mechanical motion of placing items in the box and not think about what she was holding. She did okay until she pulled out a pair of pajamas from the back of the drawer. They were the kind with feet, and were covered in little pictures of guitars, keyboards, and records. They had been a gift from her dad when Caroline was born. When she opened it, Jude had laughed, "Dad, these are huge. She won't be able to wear this for like six months." Her dad had smiled and said, "Well, honey, that's the thing about baby clothes. There's no such thing as too big. Before you know it she'll have outgrown them."

She clutched the pajamas so tightly her knuckles turned white and bit down on her lip, concentrating on the pain to keep from crying. After a moment she felt Tommy's hands on her upper arms. He'd stopped in the middle of packing up toys and caught sight of Jude, coming to kneel on the ground behind her. "Hey," he said softly. "Let's take a break, okay?"

"I'm fine," she insisted, but it came out as a whisper, so she cleared her throat and tried again. "I'm fine, Tommy." She relaxed her grip on the fabric in her hands and shrugged his hands off, folding the pajamas and placing them in the box.

"Jude," he said gently. "Take a break. It's okay." He kissed her on the temple and stood, reaching out a hand to help her up. "Come on." She sighed and took his hand, standing and following him out of the room. He gestured to the baby grand, left behind because it was too big for Jude's new apartment. "Sing something?"

She shrugged and said, "Sure." But when she sat down as he opened the lid, she saw that he had a notebook sitting on the stand. "Is this yours?" she asked, picking it up.

"Oh. Yeah. Forgot I left that out."

"You said you weren't writing!" she accused.

"No, I said I haven't been writing _much,_ " he said, sitting down next to her on the bench. "Anyway, none of it's any good."

Jude rolled her eyes. "Which means it's probably amazing." The book was the kind with a ribbon bookmark, and she slipped her finger in at the marked page. "Can I?" she asked, looking at him.

He hesitated, but she gave him a pleading look and he finally sighed and said, "Go ahead."

She opened the book and traced her fingers over the page of lyrics written in his familiar slanted capitals. _She moves with shameless wonder, the perfect creature rarely seen._ "This is really good, Tom," she said sincerely, looking over at him again. "Can I hear it?"

He hesitated again. "I… It's not finished."

"So?" she laughed. "This is me you're talking to." She bumped against him with her shoulder, quoting what he said to her a couple days ago about her song. Finally he conceded, and played it for her. She made a few suggestions on his lyrics, which he took, and they wrote another verse together before they went back to packing up the baby's room.

They spent the rest of the day like that, packing things up until it got to be too much, then taking breaks to sing and write and talk. By the time the room was empty save the dresser and the chair, the dismantled crib leaning against the wall, it was dark outside. Jude looked around the empty room and her chest tightened. She looked over at Tommy, who was sitting in the armchair in the corner, staring sadly at the pieces of the crib. She walked over to him and reached out to gently take his hand. He looked up at her and quietly said, "I guess it's done." She squeezed his fingers and pulled his hand up to her lips, pressing a kiss to the back of his hand. "You okay?" he asked.

She smiled sadly. "Not really."

"Yeah, I guess me neither," he sighed, returning her sad smile and gesturing slightly with his head. "Come here." She didn't hesitate, though maybe she should have, sitting in his lap and wrapping her arm around his neck. He put a hand on her waist and she nuzzled his hair where the surgical scar was. After a minute he said, "I miss her." He sighed. "That sounds so… banal, you know? But it's all I can think. I just… I miss being a dad. Being happy… You." He said the last word so quietly she wasn't sure she'd really heard it, or if it was wishful thinking.

Jude leaned her cheek against the top of his head and asked, "Do you ever think about what if she was still here?"

"Yeah, of course I do. All the time."

"No, I mean… I didn't phrase that right. It's more than wondering what if, or wishing." His hand was on her thigh, and she played absently with his fingers as she talked. "I mean, sometimes I, like, pretend. It's like I have this whole alternate life in my head and I think about it a lot. Like when we were taking apart the crib and packing up the room I thought 'we're moving to a house. She's going to start walking really soon, so we're moving to a house where she can have a yard to play in.'" Tommy turned to look at her, raising one eyebrow slightly. Jude sighed. "It's probably not healthy. I used to do it all the time, just sit and daydream this other world where everything is okay. I don't do that as much anymore." He gave a short "hmm" and looked away again. She sighed again. "You think I'm crazy."

"No." He shook his head. "It sounds… kind of nice, actually. I kind of did it, early on, or I'll look at the calendar and think about how old she'd be, whether she'd be crawling or walking or talking or whatever, but it isn't, like…"

"An escape?" she finished, and he nodded.

After another moment, he asked, "So, buying a house?"

"Yeah." She smiled. "We were talking about it before…"

"I remember." He sighed, then quietly asked, "So in this alternate life we're happy?" She nodded against his head, and he smiled a little. "And, what, we never fight?"

She smiled wider and shook her head. "No, we fight all the time. About who gets up in the night when she cries, and who forgot to pay the nanny, and about music, and about houses. God, we fight like crazy about houses. Why do you think it took us a year to actually move?"

He laughed. "Okay, yeah. I guess that sounds like us."

"And we say awful hurtful things when we're angry." Her smile faded and she slipped her fingers into his again. "But then we make up." Her voice grew even quieter. "We'll always make up, because we love each other, and we have a daughter, and because there we're not broken." Her voice cracked, and his chest ached. He wanted so badly to say _I still love you,_ and _we're not broken, we don't have to stay broken,_ but he didn't, just tightened his arm around her waist and squeezed her hand. "Like I said," she laughed once, sharp and sad, "probably not healthy."

They sat there for a long time, holding each other and thinking about other lives they could have led. Finally Tommy shifted and broke the silence. "Sorry, girl, I can't feel my legs."

Jude laughed, and got off of him, standing up. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because I don't want you to leave," he admitted.

She sighed. "I probably should."

He stood up out of the chair, putting a gentle hand on the side of her face. "Don't. Please stay."

"Tommy…"

"Just to sleep." He promised, stroking her cheek. "I just… Please."

She bit her lip for a second, hesitating, then nodded. "Yeah. Okay." Truthfully, she didn't want to be alone. Not tonight.

So she borrowed one of his shirts and they both got into the bed they'd once shared, staying on their own sides, carefully separate. But when they said goodnight and turned off the lights, she felt the pull of him like a magnet until she finally gave in to it, reaching over to grab his hand. She felt him shift closer to her, and she finally closed the distance, curling into his side. She put her head on his chest and felt him smile into her hair, whispering, "Hi there."

"Hi," she whispered back. As she relaxed into him, the knot in her chest finally loosened, and she fell asleep in his arms.

* * *

 **A/N:** The bit of lyrics in the middle of this chapter is from Hozier's "Foreigner's God." For some reason listening to Hozier makes me think of Tommy? I don't know why. (Although, to be honest, I think about these characters so often that _a lot_ of songs remind me of them. I'm Instant Star trash, don't worry about it.)


	53. Chapter 53

The next morning, Jude woke slowly, and for a minute it was like any other morning waking up in the bed she shared with Tommy. He was curled around her, his arm warm and heavy over her waist, his forehead resting against her shoulder. She blinked, shifting as she slowly remembered where she was and why. He stirred as she moved, making a small muffled noise and pulling her tighter against him. She recognized the feeling of his erection against her hip and her face flushed. "Tommy," she said his name softly, turning her face to him.

He gave a little hum and opened his eyes slowly, looking at her with tousled hair and droopy eyelids. It was kind of adorable, and she smiled. He smiled too as his eyes focused on her. "Hi."

"Uh… good morning," she laughed, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh!" His eyes widened suddenly, and he pulled away. "Sorry. One minute." He stood up and headed for the bathroom.

"It's okay," she laughed again. After the door closed she turned onto her side and looked around the room that had been hers for so long. Three and a half years ago she'd sat here surrounded by half-unpacked boxes and cried, missing her home and her friends and her sister, but mostly missing Tommy so much she felt like she'd break apart. Alex had proposed to her here, and she could still remember that feeling of sickening, paralyzing indecision. It was where she and Tommy had gotten back together, where she told him she was pregnant. Remembering everything, even the good memories, it wasn't exactly nostalgia she felt. It was all too much, felt more like the memories were a heavy weight pressing in on her, suffocating her. This feeling had been infinitely worse when Tommy was in Toronto, making it impossible to move on. She'd been glad to get away, living somewhere where it wasn't as bad. But now, after a night sleeping curled up with him, the idea of leaving this place for good was bittersweet, tied up in the idea of never waking up to his bedhead again. No matter how low their lows had been, there had been so many good times too, and Jude knew she'd never stop missing it, missing him.

She heard him re-enter the room and turned to him. He was standing awkwardly in the doorway, looking at her. "This is weird," she said, then clarified quickly. "Being here, I mean."

"Yeah," he agreed. "For a minute there it was like we'd–"

"Gone back in time?" she finished.

He gave her a wry smile and nodded. "Slept well, though," he added as he walked to the dresser to grab his phone. "Better than I have in… I don't even know how long."

"Me too," she agreed. His phone made a noise in his hand, then, and his eyes widened as he looked at the screen. "What is it?" she asked.

"E-mail from Nora."

"What did she say?" Jude asked eagerly, moving to sit at the end of the bed. He ignored her as he opened the e-mail. "Tommy!" she protested, impatient. "What does it say? Is she giving you your job back?"

"Shh." He waved his hand at her as he continued to read, his expression betraying nothing. After a moment, he gave a heavy sigh and turned to her, looking sad.

"Oh no," Jude said, her heart sinking. "No! You're kidding me. She said no?"

His face broke into a smile, then. "She said yes."

"She what?" Jude cried incredulously.

He laughed. "She said yes, Jude, she's taking me back. As producer, no pay cut."

"That's amazing!" Jude practically screeched, launching herself off the bed and into his arms. "Congratulations, Tommy!" He hugged her back tightly. She pulled back far enough to look at him. "You're staying in London!" she exclaimed.

"I'm staying," he confirmed, grinning. He placed a hand on the side of her face, stroking her cheek with his thumb. She could feel his breath on her face, and that flame flickered to life in her chest. There was a sense of inevitability as his mouth found hers again. She pressed herself against him and she knew it was dangerous. Like a moth to flame, like falling downhill picking up speed, like an avalanche, like a storm… Except it didn't feel like any of that. It felt like coming home, like being made whole, like broken pieces finally fixed.

This time he was the one to hesitate. "We shouldn't," he breathed as she pulled his shirt over her head.

"Do you want to stop?" she asked, raising her eyebrows at him.

"No," he laughed breathlessly, shaking his head.

"Then don't think about it," she whispered as she pushed him to the bed.

.

They lay together for a long time. Tommy was the one to eventually break the silence, murmuring, "Jude, we should talk."

"No," she groaned.

He kissed her hair and gently said, "We need to talk about this, girl."

She snorted and pushed herself up on her elbow. "Since when are you the one who wants to talk through things? My 18-year old self would drop dead of shock," she teased him, but her smile was affectionate.

"A lot has changed since then," he sighed, reaching out to brush a lock of hair behind her ear.

She snorted another laugh. "Understatement of the century."

His expression remained serious. "If I'm moving back, especially if we're working together again, this is going to keep happening. You know it is."

She quirked an eyebrow. "Are you complaining?"

"No." He smiled a little. "But we need to talk about what this means. What are we doing, Jude?"

"Two adults relieving tension?" she quoted sarcastically.

"Hey, if you want to pretend that's all this is…"

She sighed heavily and rolled over onto her back, covering her face with her hands. He rolled onto his side, propping his head up on his elbow and looking at her, waiting. Finally she took her hands away from her face and looked back at him. "You know how I feel," she said quietly. "You _know_ what this is. But I'm…" she trailed off with another sigh.

"Scared?" he finished softly.

"Terrified," she confirmed in a whisper.

"You think I'm not, Jude?"

"I just feel like… I'm finally okay. I might not be… happy, exactly, but I'm at least finally doing okay, and so are you, right? And I just feel like if we try again and it falls apart, that's gonna break me, Tommy. That's gonna break both of us. We've finally started to move forward, and if we try to go back…"

He sighed and sat up, turning away from her and putting his head in his hands. "Then maybe I don't move back to London," he said quietly. "Maybe I go back to Toronto and stay there."

"Tommy, no," she protested, sitting up too. "Nora gave you a second chance, and you deserve it. If you want to come back to London, you should. You need to. I told you, I want you to come back." He turned to look at her and she reached out, stroking his cheek with the backs of her fingers. "I want you here." She leaned in, her face close to his. "I" she kissed the corner of his mouth gently "want you" another kiss "here. Okay?" He pushed her back down into the pillows, kissing her neck, then her shoulder before pulling up again to look at her. She traced her fingers along his jaw and asked "What do you want?"

"Honestly?" Tommy shook his head sadly. "What I want isn't possible."

"Time machine?" she asked, and he nodded. She sighed. "I'm scared that if we try to go back to what we were, it's just going to hurt again."

He sighed too and laid back down, pulling her against him again. Despite everything, she knew this would always feel like home, lying here in his arms. If she let him go she would never stop longing for this. She closed her eyes and they lay there in silence for a long time until he said, "So maybe we don't try to go back."

She propped herself up to look at him, skeptically. "Can we really just be coworkers, Tommy? Friends? You really think that's going to work? I don't know if you've noticed, but I have like, less than zero willpower when it comes to you."

Tommy smiled at that, then shook his head. "No, I don't mean be just friends, I mean… We don't go back, we go forward." She frowned, confused, and he tried to explain. "We try and just… take it slow, you know? Get back together, but not like how it was. We've been trying to get that version of us back, but it's gone. I think we both still have some stuff we need to figure out or work on or whatever, right?" Jude nodded slowly, and Tommy reached out again, brushing the back of her cheek with his fingers for a moment before saying, "I want to be with you, Jude, but I don't think I even know how to be that person anymore, after everything that's happened."

"Okay… so we do what?"

"I move back to London, but we don't live together. We work together, and we… I don't know. Date?"

"Like… casual?"

He shrugged. "I guess. As casual as it's possible to be when you've… you know."

 _When I've been in love with you since I was 15?_ she thought, but said, "Had a kid?"

"Yeah." He laughed a little. "Which, admittedly, is not exactly casual."

"Dating," she said, considering the word.

"We had time apart to figure out who we are on our own, and now maybe we can try to figure out who we are together. We take it slow. Let it be… fun, you know? Not so intense?"

"So the stakes aren't so high," she mused, and he gave a hum. She thought for another moment, then nodded. "I can do that. Taking it slow. Have our own places and our own lives, but also have each other."

"And we can just… learn how to be happy again."

"Back to where we've never been?" Jude asked, grinning.

 _"Start over, and make it better,"_ he sang softly.

"Apparently I was wiser at 18 than I knew." She leaned down with a smile and he kissed her gently, his hand behind her head.

When they broke the kiss, he murmured, "Broken doesn't have to stay broken."


	54. Chapter 54

Taking things slow was harder than Tommy had expected. He'd missed Jude so badly that all he wanted to do now was be with her. They spent the next two nights together in the old apartment, and it was 48 hours of the kind of bliss he'd thought he'd lost for good, writing music and talking and just being together. He was beginning to convince himself that there was no need to slow down, that they could go back more or less to where they'd been a year ago.

The first test of their re-discovered harmony was when Benjamin's single came on the radio while they were in the kitchen eating breakfast. Jude was out of her chair like a shot as soon as she recognized the song, rushing to turn it off.

"Jude, it's okay," Tommy said with a sigh, having successfully pushed away the little surge of anger at the sound of Benjamin's voice. She looked back at him and he smiled a little. "Really, girl, it's okay. Leave it on."

Jude nodded and set the remote down, leaving the radio on, but she watched him carefully as the song played.

"It's a good song," Tommy said softly after a moment, then he smiled and said brightly, "Hey, grab me more coffee, will you?"

Jude visibly relaxed at his smile, and they fell back into comfortable conversation, the reminder of the things that tore them apart having passed without a fight.

The evening of the third day, Tommy had a headache. His headaches had improved a lot, were less frequent and far less severe than they had been, but this was the worst he'd had in a long time. When Jude first asked if he was okay, he brushed it off and just tried harder to hide the pain, heading to the bathroom to discreetly take a few ibuprofen, but the headache was still bad enough that he couldn't ignore it. After he snapped at Jude a little later, she asked again what was wrong, looking concerned. He reminded himself that he was supposed to let her in if they were going to make this work, so he sighed and said, "I have a headache, it's no big deal."

"How bad?"

He shrugged, but she raised her eyebrows and he admitted, "Pretty bad. Worst in a while."

Jude stood up, suddenly, and crossed the room, turning off the lights. Tommy protested, "Oh, Jude, you don't have to–"

She cut him off, coming back to the couch and saying, "Lay down."

He shook his head. "Jude, I don't need you to take care of me."

Jude nodded. "I know." She leaned in, putting a hand gently on the side of his face. "Let me anyway?" she asked quietly, looking into his eyes.

He sighed and leaned his forehead against hers. "Okay."

"Good," she said softly, kissing his forehead. "Then lay down." He did as she asked, and she pulled his head gently into her lap. "Is this okay?" she asked, and he nodded. "Can I touch your hair?"

He smiled a little at the fact that she'd learned to ask after years of him reprimanding her for messing up his hair. "Yeah."

She ran her fingers gently through his hair and he shut his eyes, trying to relax. It felt nice, and it did seem to help the headache a little bit, but somehow he still felt tense, on edge. He concentrated on keeping his breathing deep and even, hoping that the more he relaxed, the more the pain would fade.

After a few minutes, Jude said, "I've been thinking about something the last couple days."

When she didn't continue, Tommy opened his eyes and looked up at her. "You gonna tell me what that something is?"

She'd been looking at her hands as they stroked his hair, but now she stopped and met his eyes. "It's about you. About your music."

He frowned. "What about it?"

"I think you should talk to Nora about releasing an album."

He sat up quickly, ignoring the pounding the sudden movement caused in his head. "What?"

Jude looked a little taken aback at his reaction, but she continued. "Well, you were planning on it before, right? Before Caroline died?"

He shook his head. "That wasn't a _plan_ , it was just something we talked about a couple of times."

"No…" Jude frowned. "It was definitely a plan. It was something we talked to _Nora_ about a couple of times."

"That was… A lifetime ago, Jude, I… Everything is completely different now." He was getting frustrated, his hands clenching into fists. "Please just drop this."

"Why?" Jude looked incredulous. "I know we both stopped with our music for a while, but that's kind of the whole point of this, right? That we're trying to get back to our lives? Trying to move forward?"

"What about your album? Do you not want me as co-producer anymore? Wasn't that the plan? Do you not want to work together?"

"Of course I want to work together!" Jude laughed. "But babe, I've had _six_ albums. Seven counting the tour album, eight if you count the remix as separate. I can put my music on hold for a while longer. It's your turn. Let me be _your_ wingman for once. It's been almost a decade since Frozen. You need to get your music out there."

"I don't _have_ any music!" he protested. "What would I even put on an album? I can't just sing a bunch of songs from before, pretend nothing's changed."

"What do you mean you don't have any music? Tommy, I've heard it." She raised her eyebrows. "What about all the songs you've played me, that we've worked on over the past couple of days? Why isn't that music you could put on an album?"

He stood up from the couch, running his hands through his hair. "That's not…" He turned away from her and shut his eyes in frustration, his hands still clenched in his hair. "That isn't… None of it is any good."

"Don't say that!" Jude protested. "Tom, you are an _incredible_ songwriter. The stuff you've written lately, especially, it's–"

"No, it isn't!" he cried, turning back to her and dropping his hands to his sides.

She looked surprised and concerned now. "Whoa, hey, calm down. I get that it's scary putting yourself out there, but–"

"Shut up!" he shouted. "You don't know! Why can't you ever just back the hell off?! I don't fucking want to release an album, okay?! And I don't need your fucking help!" He looked at Jude's face, her frightened look, and it brought him back to his senses. He put a fist up to the center of his forehead and pressed it there for a moment. "Shit, Jude, I…" He looked at her imploringly, but he was still too tense, too irrationally angry, to have a conversation without yelling again. "I'm sorry, I just… I need a minute, okay? Don't go, you don't have to go, I just… Please give me a minute, okay?" Jude nodded mutely, and he said, "I'm sorry," again before leaving the room and heading to the music room, soothing with its heavy curtains and soundproofed walls. He sat on the couch and tried to breathe deeply, letting the cool, silent darkness calm him.

A long while later, he heard a soft knock on the door, and looked over to see Jude in a sliver of hallway light, hesitating in the doorway. "Can I…" she started softly.

"Yeah, 'course. Come in," he said, looking down at his hands and sighing.

She crossed the room and sat down on the couch next to him. They were both silent and still for a long moment before she raised her hand to gently brush some of his hair to the side, then leaned in and pressed her lips to his temple. "Are you okay?" she asked gently when she pulled back.

He turned to her, only just able to make out her concerned look in the mostly dark room. "Yeah," he sighed. "Yeah, I'm good." He leaned in and rested his forehead against hers for a second. "Thanks." He pulled away, leaning back against the back of the couch. She leaned into him and laid her head on his shoulder. He put an arm around her shoulders, turning to kiss her hair before resting his cheek against the top of her head. After a long moment he said, "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay." She put a hand on his knee and squeezed it. "I understand."

"I try to control it, but sometime it just gets–"

Jude sat up straight and looked at him. "Tommy, this _was_ you controlling it."

He shook his head. "I yelled at you, I overreacted, I–"

She cut him off, gently. "And then you stopped. You told me what was going on, you left the situation… That sounds like controlling it to me. You handled it really well."

He sighed heavily and looked down at his hands in his lap again. "You looked… scared." His voice was barely a whisper.

Jude hesitated, then said, "Yeah, I… I was, for a second." She heard Tommy's sharp intake of breath and quickly added, "But not _of_ you. Never of you, just… After everything that happened before… when you got angry it just reminded me of that. The thing I'm scared of is losing you."

He looked back up at her and put a hand on her cheek. "You're not going to lose me," he said firmly.

She smiled a little and leaned in to kiss him. "I know," she whispered when she pulled back. She ran her fingers through the hair at his temples and said, "But I… think I should probably sleep at my place tonight. It's not because of anything you did," she added quickly, "it's just that I think maybe we've–"

"Been moving a little fast," he finished, and she nodded. "Yeah," he agreed, "I get it. And I'll start looking for a new place, for when this lease expires. You were right about this apartment having too many memories."

"Moving forward, not backward," she murmured, laying her head on his shoulder again.

"Yeah," he said softly, kissing her hair. After another long moment he said, "About what you said, about me releasing an album…"

"We don't have to talk about it," Jude said quickly. "I shouldn't have pushed you. If you don't want to, you don't want to. Forget I brought it up."

"No, I… I think you're right."

She looked up at him, surprised. "Really?"

"Really. I know I could keep finding excuses not to do it, but… You're right, I think maybe it's time." He smiled at her. "As long as I have a co-producer?"

She grinned. "Always."


	55. Chapter 55

They didn't say "I love you."

Tommy thought it all the time, sometimes thought it near constantly when he was with Jude, but somehow this seemed like a barrier they couldn't cross yet, a major part of the boundary that defined "taking things slow." So he didn't say it when she sang, when she made him laugh, when she curled up next to him in bed with her head on his chest. He didn't say it when she talked him down, kept him from tearing all the pages out of his notebook in frustration and giving up on the idea of a solo album altogether. He didn't say it when they made love and it felt like the words would come bursting from his chest. Instead he just kissed her or he said "you're so beautiful" or "thank you" or he just said her name, breathed "Jude" like the word was sacred.

In the end, it just slipped out. He was leaving for a meeting with Nora to pitch his album, and he was running late because he couldn't find his cell phone. Jude called "found it!" from his bedroom and quickly came back down the hall. "It was under the bed," she said as she held it out to him. "Must've fallen off the nightstand and gotten kicked under there."

He gave a sigh of relief. "Oh god, thank you, you just saved my ass." He took it from her and put it in his jacket pocket. He looked over at the clock and muttered, "Damn, I'm gonna be late."

"You'll be fine, traffic isn't bad," she reassured him. "You're sure you don't want me to come with?"

"No, I got it. I want to do this myself."

Jude nodded. "Okay. Good luck. Call me after?"

"Yeah, of course. First thing."

She smiled. "I'm proud of you."

He laughed as he grabbed his travel mug of coffee from the counter and sing-songed, "Condescend-ing."

Jude laughed too. "Shut up."

As he walked by her, he leaned down to give her a quick kiss. "Love you."

"Love you too."

He was halfway to the door before he realized what they'd just said. He turned back to look at her. She'd realized it too, and was staring at him with her eyebrows raised. He gave a little laugh. "Sorry."

She shook her head. "It's fine."

"I know we… kind of haven't said that yet since we got back together, it just slipped out. Habit."

Jude nodded. "Yeah, me too. No worries."

"Okay." He started to turn back to the door before saying "Wait," and turning back around. "I know we're trying to… take it slow, or whatever, and I may not have meant to say it, but I _did_ mean it. Jude, I love you." He said it pointedly, as meaningfully as he could. "I never stopped loving you. I couldn't– I _will_ never stop. You don't have to say it back, but it's–"

"Tommy," she cut him off with a laugh, walking up to him and putting a hand on the side of his face. "I love you too. Always have, always will." His face broke into a smile and he leaned down to kiss her, threading the fingers of his free hand through her hair. She pulled back after a moment and said, "Babe, you're late."

"Ah, dammit," he muttered, pulling away and heading for the door again. When he had it open he turned back to her and said, "Hey."

She looked back at him and raised her eyebrows. "What now?"

He smiled. "I love you."

Jude rolled her eyes, but she was grinning ear to ear. "I love you too." She laughed when he just stood there smiling at her. "Go, you giant sap!"

He held up a hand. "I'm going!" He shut the door behind him and walked to the elevator.

Just as the elevator doors opened, he heard Jude's voice from behind him call, "Tommy!" He turned around, expecting her to be holding up something he'd forgotten, but instead she just called, "I love you!"

He laughed. "Now who's the giant sap?" He got in the elevator and pushed the button for the main lobby, the sound of Jude's laughter carrying down the hallway and making him smile.

… ... … ... …

"I cannot do this anymore!" Jude cried.

Tommy spit his mouthwash out into the sink and poked his head out of the bathroom to look at her. "Can't do what anymore?"

She turned to look at him. "This thing where half of my stuff is at my place, but the other half is here, so I never have anything that I need when I need it. It is _so_ frustrating. I can't do this. This is not working."

"What did you forget? Do we need to stop by your place on the way to the studio again?"

"No, it's just eyeliner." She sighed and shook her head. "It's not a big deal, but the stupid makeup isn't the point. The point is that this happens every _goddamn_ day. I've started buying two of everything. I have two toothbrushes, two phone chargers… I'm living in two apartments, and I can't do it anymore."

A crease formed between Tommy's eyebrows. "Are you saying you want to stop staying over?"

"No," Jude sighed, walking over to him. "No, no, of course not." She stepped closer to him, putting her hands on his chest and looking up at him. He wrapped his arms around her waist and she leaned in closer. "I love waking up to you," she whispered. He smiled and leaned in to kiss her. When they broke apart she pulled away again. "I'm just saying I can't do this living in two places at once thing. It's driving me crazy."

Tommy raised his eyebrows. "What are you suggesting?" he asked it tentatively, not wanting to jump to conclusions.

"I'm saying… I can't remember the last night we spent apart. When was the last time we even drove separately to work? Tommy, we're basically living together, we're just doing it in two places instead of one."

He smiled. "Is this you asking me to move in?" It was funny, he realized, that they'd never actually had this conversation before. When they'd first gotten back together after Jude's engagement to Alex ended, Tommy had moved out of his London apartment before they left for tour, let the short lease expire without much of a conversation about it at all, at least as far as he could remember. It had somehow just been a given that he'd move in with her. Ironic that it was now, almost two years and a baby later, that they were finally having this classic relationship conversation for the first time.

But Jude surprised him by shaking her head. "No."

Tommy frowned. "So you want to move in here? I mean, that's fine with me, but it's further from the studio, and your place has a nicer–"

She shook her head again, cutting him off. "No."

"Then I'm confused. You don't want to move in together?"

"No, I do. I just think we should get a place together. You moved in with me before, and we've just… never really had a place that's totally ours, you know?"

He smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, that sounds perfect. So you want to go apartment-hunting some time?"

Jude hesitated. "What if… maybe we could get a house? Instead of an apartment?" Tommy raised his eyebrows, surprised, and Jude bit her lip for a second, then said, "I know it'd have to be a lot farther from work and everything, but we've talked about it before."

"Yeah…" Tommy said slowly. "But that was sort of different. I mean, that was because of Caroline. We started talking about it when you were…" His eyes widened. "Wait, Jude, you're not–"

"No, no," she said quickly. "But… I don't know. Maybe someday?"

Tommy laughed in surprise. "What happened to taking things slow?"

"I'm sick of slow." She leaned back against the door frame, wrapping her arms around his waist and pulling him against her. "It's been almost four months since you've been back. I don't want slow, I want to move forward." She saw his eyebrows shoot up and clarified. "I'm not saying I want a baby, I am _definitely_ not saying that. It hasn't even been a year since Caroline died. I'm not saying I'm ready, not by a long shot, I'm just saying… I want to take a step in that direction, I guess? We took things slow for a while, and it was what we needed to do, but I feel like we've been acting like… like we're still not sure this is going to last, you know?" There was still a slight crease between Tommy's eyebrows, but he reached out and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and nodded slowly. She continued, looking up into his eyes. "Tommy, I'm ready to be sure."

Tommy smiled. "I've been sure for a long time, girl."

"You know what I mean."

He nodded, leaning down to kiss her. When he pulled back he grinned at her. "Okay, yeah. Yeah, let's do it. Let's buy a house."

… ... … ... …

Jude was sitting on their new kitchen counter, humming along to the radio as Tommy tried to figure out which of their poorly-organized moving boxes contained dishes. She swung her legs where they hung over the edge and smiled, amused as she watched him muttering to himself in frustration. When he finally pulled a glass out of the box, he gave an "aha!" and unwrapped it from the bubble wrap, setting it on the counter. After he'd unpacked a few, he picked them up and walked around to put them in the cabinet. As he passed her, Jude stuck out her leg, brushing her foot against him as he passed. "Hey!" he protested, looking over at her and moving out of her way. Jude laughed and Tommy rolled his eyes. "You know," he said as he placed glasses into the cabinet, "you _could_ help me with this."

"I could," she agreed, making no move to get off the counter.

Tommy turned back to her, raising his eyebrows, and when she didn't move, just grinned at him, he rolled his eyes again, though a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "You're useless." He shook his head, laughing a little as he did.

"I'm here to encourage you!" Jude joked. "I'm providing moral support."

"Oh, very helpful," he said sarcastically.

"No need to thank me." She laughed as he rolled his eyes at her again and walked back to the box, where he pulled more dishes out. Jude watched Tommy as he unwrapped the dishes, singing along softly to the radio. She felt a rush of warmth as she watched him, and she looked around the kitchen, their new house, finally a place that was really theirs. Her heart squeezed as she looked back at Tommy, who was putting more glasses into the cabinet.

He looked back at her when he was done, and he raised his eyebrows when he saw her expression. "What?"

"Nothing," she said, surprised.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked with a little laugh.

"It's nothing," she repeated, shaking her head, but he raised his eyebrows farther. He walked up so he was standing in front of her, and put his hands on her knees, tilting his head questioningly. She shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just…" She glanced around at the kitchen before looking back to him, reaching out and linking her hands behind his neck, resting her arms on his shoulders. "I'm really happy." She was almost surprised to hear the words come out of her mouth, surprised at how true they were.

A slow smile spread across Tommy's face, and he reached out to put a hand on the side of her face, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "Yeah. Me too."

.

The End

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you thank you thank you so much for reading and reviewing. I kind of can't believe it's over! I was nervous to post this story because I worked so hard on it for so long, but I also knew it was a huge departure from the considerably lighter stories to which it is a sequel. It means a lot that I have gotten so many wonderfully supportive comments. Obviously when I started out the Instant Star fandom was about a hundred times larger than it is now, but I so value those of you who have stuck around with me as I continue to write exclusively fanfiction for a show that ended eight and a half years ago.

I did originally plan to write an epilogue to this story, which I may have mentioned. I worked with a ton of ideas, but the more I worked on it, the more I liked the idea of ending it here, with them having found their way back to one another and, more importantly, happy again. That, after all, is the story I was trying to tell when I began this whole crazy journey three and a half years ago.

That said, the lack of epilogue does _not_ mean there will be a sequel. These stories are finished. I think that almost nine irl years, approximately four years of in-story time (from the beginning of Happy Birthday to the end of this story) and this much drama later, this version of Tommy and Jude deserve to keep their happily ever after. If you'll miss it terribly, though, follow my _Happy Birthday Extras_ story. I don't have anything specific planned at this point, but I can't imagine these stories will let me go completely, so there should be new things there at some point. Maybe one day I'll stop writing Instant Star fanfiction, but I doubt that day will come soon. For some unexplainable reason, these characters still inspire me to write in a way nothing else does.

A thing I said I'd address at the end of the story: A couple reviewers throughout this story expressed the opinion that Jude and Tommy shouldn't end up together in the end, that there's a toxicity to their relationship. While I don't disagree that the relationship is dysfunctional, at this point in the stories (both the canon of Instant Star and these three Happy Birthday stories) there's no victory in them ending up apart. Fighting for years to stay together and then ultimately losing your relationship is a thing that happens in real life, of course, and that may have been the more realistic take, but ultimately that would be a crushing loss, not just of one another, but of _years_ of wasted effort. Life is often sad that way, so that would be the more realistic story, but fanfiction isn't necessarily about being realistic. To me, regardless of whether it would be the more realistic, or even the healthier choice to have them end up breaking up and staying broken up, to write that as the ending would have felt like throwing away eight years of work on my part. The greater victory for Jude and Tommy as characters, but also in terms of catharsis for me and for you as readers, lies in them having found their way back to each other. Fanfiction isn't about realism. (If you actually prefer that, though, a more realistic take on the Jude/Tommy relationship without the "love conquers all" lens, I've got an upcoming story you might like, while everyone else probably won't, ha. I tried my hand at a more cynical take on my OTP, and it turned out okay, though I maybe am fighting an uphill battle with the premise. Anyway, keep an eye out for that in the next couple months or so. It'll be called "Closer" #selfplug)

Again, thank you so much for reading. I've really enjoyed reading your reviews and your perspectives, and yes, even the ones I've disagreed with fairly vehemently have been really interesting. An extra-special thank you to my friend and sometimes-beta Chloe (who apparently kept reading even when her bed had become a pool of her tears), to everyone who reviewed, and to all of you who have stuck with me and these stories since I was in high school. I seriously can't believe it's been this long!

–Kari

P.S.: If you have any questions or comments or things you want to talk to me about, my inbox is always open, both here and on tumblr (URL is asortoflight)


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